Posts Tagged ‘cancer’


I’m Praying for YOU! (Part I)

August 1st, 2008 by Waldorf Van Buren

“I’m praying for you,” or “you and your family are in my prayers.” They’ve become the all-too familiar refrain of people who want to do or say something meaningful to someone in crisis, but don’t have the desire or the knowledge to actually do anything.

Admittedly, when one faces a deadly disease (or sees someone close to them go through it), there isn’t much you can actively do to get well. You can follow doctor’s orders, you can try to enjoy life, you can do any number of things to take your mind off of the impact that the disease is having, and will have on the rest of your life. For those who don’t know how to do anything else, there’s prayer.

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Don’t Speak… Advice From A Cancer Patient

September 9th, 2008 by Waldorf Van Buren

I’ve had a bit of bad luck when it comes to deadly or near deadly diseases. Well, cancer, at any rate.  Most of my family has gone through cancer treatment. I’ve had cancer, and then 2 recurrences of the same disease in different areas of my body, which meant more and more aggressive treatment. I’ve gone through so much radiation and chemotherapy that I should have superpowers by now.*

During the first two recurrences I was pretty cool headed, and just took everything with a smile, a joke, or a small laugh and I didn’t worry too much about the outcome. With the third round and the extensive, life-altering, body-altering treatment at the ripe old age of 34, I began to look at the world with a slightly darker view.

The most interesting thing about cancer was the effect it had on other people, and how they would respond when someone they knew contracted the immune system defect. It still carries such a thought of death, as well as the general stigma associated with those suffering through the treatments and disease, that it’s easy to be dumbfounded when talking to someone with cancerme, I still flip and flop and tie my tongue around my bicuspids any time I deal with someone else with the disease.

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Chemotherapy and Holistic “Medicine”

September 18th, 2009 by Waldorf Van Buren

Recently, there has been a spate of deaths related to cancer, such as Mary Travers, Farrah Fawcett, and Patrick Swayze to name but a few of the most prominent cases.  The Patrick Swayze case is remarkable in that he survived the fight against pancreatic cancer for so long.   Pancreatic cancer does not have a very good track record with or without treatments, and unfortunately the life expectancy is only about 5 to 8 months.  However that number is a statistic that needs to be reexamined in light of new treatments.  (http://www.pancreatic.org/site/c.htJYJ8MPIwE/b.891917/k.5123/Prognosis_of_Pancreatic_Cancer.htm) That Mr. Swayze survived for twenty-two months with the disease is promising, though I do not know what treatments he may or may not have received.  Suzanne Somers, who also had a struggle with Breast Cancer, offers that Mr. Swayze was poisoned by chemotherapy.  If chemotherapy was indeed used, and the probability is very high, then yes, he indeed was poisoned.  That’s what chemotherapy is.  That’s why there are side effects.  To say that chemotherapy should not be used is irresponsible at this point until further non-chemical alternatives can be found, tested, and approved.

I know very little about pancreatic cancer, except that it affected my family doctor, one of my uncles, and countless other people around the world.  Personally, I lucked out in the cancer lottery by only getting Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, which is supposedly easy to treat and cure comparatively (though I’m on my fourth recurrence and the “cure/treat” claim has yet to be proven to me).  I know about toxicity and toxic effects of chemotherapy drugs, as well as the detriments of radiation therapy.  I haven’t had any major surgeries, just minor ones to grab lymph nodes.  I know how the drugs made me feel, and I know what the drugs did to my body.  I am still alive after seven years thanks to the chemotherapy drugs and the skilled doctors who performed countless procedures on me.  My lungs and heart are weakened, my eyesight has degenerated, my bones more brittle, but those have not only to do with the countless drugs but also the effects of aging, albeit that aging process has been sped up.  However, if you put aside that, I know that I am alive and I thank chemotherapy for this opportunity.

I do not love chemotherapy.  In fact, I dread sitting in the comfortable leather chair with the liquid poison entering into my system.  Cancer needs to be defeated once and for all, and while there are effective weapons to do it, it creates a “scorched body” as it eliminates all reproductive cells.  Research has been going on for years to find better ways to cure the body, and I do agree with the Holisticators out there that natural means are needed to keep the body healthy, I do not see those natural means as any thing but a placebo right now.  It is important to stay healthy and eat a balanced diet and drink plenty of filtered, clean water.  Don’t put any more toxins in your body than necessary (which makes breathing, eating, and drinking in our world fairly precarious).  New methods, however, are being tested daily.  Doctors are increasingly searching for ways to lessen the toxicity while maximizing the effectiveness.  Vaccines, immunotherapy, monoclonal antibodies (also immunotherapy), stem cells, ways to boost the immune system are currently expanding and making huge exponential steps.  The treatments in the seventies have become third tier options, and the options of two years ago are being replaced with newer, more effective drugs or treatments.  However, holistic medicine is not anywhere near the top of board-certified doctors’ lists.  They may encourage use of these therapies as adjutant or complementary therapies, but by no means would a reasonable, logical, or sane person suggest that they be used alone.

During one of my previous recurrences, I was advised to “heal myself” with no other explanation.  I was also advised to bring more lavender into my life.  I am not sure what lavender would do other than possibly unblock a chakra or two, and I’m not entirely sure which chakra is connected to my lymphoma.  I HAVE meditated.  In fact, I meditate as much as I can.  I do believe that Eastern Medicine and sagacity of the mystics has its place in healing and as preventative measures, but the facts are firmly in Western Medicine’s corner for the curative aspects when dealing with life-threatening disease.  You can have it both ways if you deal with it in a logical fashion.  Pray all you want, but not for a miracle.  It doesn’t happen that way.  If it did, we wouldn’t need doctors at all, and health insurance would rely on how powerful your deity is.  However, I’m not saying don’t pray, either.  It’s as good as meditation for preventative medicine.

So while Suzanne Somer’s particular point of crazy is true, Patrick Swayze WAS poisoned by chemotherapy, as true to its purpose, but coffee enemas, juicing, and jumping on a personal trampoline are not ways to cure or treat cancer.  Crazy is not a treatment. Neither is placing a crystal over the affected area, applying oils, or meditating on a cure.  It’s a surefire way to increase your odds of dying a drawn-out, painful death.  Don’t accept one doc’s diagnosis, either, go to a second doctor for options, but be sure to know quackery from medicine.  Holistic medicine might not be as bad as snake oil, but the way it’s pushed it sure does resemble it.

Related articles:

You can follow me on Twitter @derylykt.  Waldorf’s other blog, which contains some other things but is mostly just reposts of his Suburban Panic junk, at http://fauver.madpage.com/wordpress.  It’s not nearly as exciting there as it is here, though.

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In Memoriam: Waldorf Van Buren

January 8th, 2010 by Oskar Kennedy

His name wasn’t Waldorf, obviously. It was Brett Fauver. And if you only knew him from his work here at Suburban Panic, then you only knew a very small facet of his life. Brett was a writer, an actor and a director, a graphic designer. He was also a husband, and father to three wonderful boys. And for the better part of a decade and a half, Brett was my friend.

I won’t try to sum up our entire friendship in this small space. We were sometimes rivals, sometimes collaborators. We shared an apartment at one point, and we disagreed as often as we saw eye to eye. He made me laugh as consistently as anyone ever has, and he challenged me in ways that I didn’t always realize until many years later.

Brett and I did share one conviction that I’m sure of, and that was the belief that this life, this existence, is the most important. Brett believed that the love of his wife and sons, the fellowship of his friends and the joy that he brought to people through his work in the theater, was far more precious and valuable than any possible reward he might receive after this life was over.

He had the type of cancer known as Hodgkins disease for about seven years. Through two bone marrow transplants, half a dozen remissions and recurrences, Brett never stopped fighting, and he never stopped planning for the work he wanted to do when he finally beat the disease, as he always expected to. He was always putting together his next big project, and even when his schemes were derailed by his illness, he never allowed anyone to believe that it was permanent. He was determined to make the most of the life he had, and I can say with some certainty that, while his life’s work was far shorter than it should have been, its effect in terms of the lives it touched was immeasurable.

It is a small thing, but an important one, I think, that we’re clear about how he died. It was not the cancer that killed him. Brett was undergoing chemotherapy, preparing his body for a planned third bone marrow transplant. When his immune system was at its nadir, beaten down by the treatment, he got an infection. It rapidly overwhelmed his weakened body, and ultimately took his life.

In the end, he was felled by an outside invader, and not the uncontrolled growth of his own cells. He was determined not to let cancer beat him, and he succeeded. While he died because of the cancer, and the treatments he needed in order to try to fight it, he didn’t die from the cancer. Again, it is a small distinction. But it would be, I think, an important one to him.

I often think of each life as a trajectory, like a comet falling through space. As we pass other objects, our paths are altered, sometimes subtly, sometimes radically. My path had occasion to cross Brett’s many times over the years, and I like to think that the changes he made to my orbit were almost all for the better. I will miss you, my friend, and I will always remember your passion, your energy and your determination. Thank you for everything. If there is a world waiting for us after this one, I’m sure you’re already changing the blocking.

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