Hope

Today was my first visit to the illustrious Mayo Clinic. It is, at least, impressive to behold with its marble floors, leather seating, and rich wood texture. I couldn’t decide whether I was in a Las Vegas hotel, where the odds are stacked against you, or a clinic. And, as I walked up the marble stairs to the 10th floor, I couldn’t help but consider the integrity of a health care system that boasted such opulence while engendering such poor outcomes. After all, “it is hard to ignore that in 2006, the United States was number 1 in terms of health care spending per capita but ranked 39th for infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy.” (1) I was wending my way up into a house of cards.

The 10th floor housed ‘Cancer and Genetics.’ I was accompanying my dear friend, Amy, who has been receiving treatment for Inflammatory Breast Cancer. We have come to learn the results of her MRI and to meet with the surgeon to make a decision about having a mastectomy. We have come with hope in our hearts. Last week’s PET scan held positive results. The cancer was at bay. The MRI a mere formality to rule out a cloud on the PET scan. That’s what they had called it, a cloud.

No amount of opulence can disguise the fact that you are sitting in a clinical exam room. The instruments, the biohazard containers, the generic nature scene on the wall. As soon as we were seated, Amy’s demeanor changed, visibly and audibly. Her foot started to bounce up and down. Her breathing quickened. I focused on the picture on the wall. A lush, healthy green forest. My eye was drawn to a bright spot in the very center of the scene. A single, bright mushroom amongst a blanket of green.

The surgeon arrived and sat himself down in front of that picture. The look on his face produced the first crack in the hope in my heart. The words that followed could hardly be comprehended. The MRI revealed more cancer. The PET scan, the same one that had earlier given us hope, actually held more questions than answers. And because the cancer was not contained, the surgeon’s services would not be needed. Amy’s breath was ragged now. My own chest constricted as my mind struggled to comprehend what I was hearing. I understood the terminology but none of it made sense. All I could do was to focus on the bright spot in the picture hanging above this surgeon’s head. Although my head was swirling, I did not miss the absolute irony of that bright spot, that single mushroom in a field of green, hanging on the wall of the cancer section at Mayo Clinic. For research shows that medicinal mushrooms “ interfere with the processes related to carcinogenesis.”(2)

The surgeon left and the oncologist came. I am not sure what I should’ve expected from the oncologist, but it certainly wasn’t what I heard. “You’ve responded wonderfully to treatment.” Confusion. Amy questions his optimism, pointing out that the results seem to indicate that the cancer has spread. Hence, the treatment, perhaps, was not so effective. The oncologist repeats his assertion, as if we did not hear him the first time or that we were somehow not grateful. “You have responded wonderfully to treatment.” No matter how she pressed, we heard the same response over and over again. A disturbing laugh-track in a very bad sit-com. Ultimately, treatment would continue and Amy would be monitored closely. And so we were encouraged to depart, trembling, from this house of cards.

Amy stared straight ahead as we waited to hear when she would return for her next appointment. I watched her in profile, a marble bust blending beautifully into the waiting room. With my own heart feeling like a stone in my chest, I reached out to hold her hand, support her. My purpose for being here. She turned, slowly. Her eyes, welling with tears, looked unwaveringly, grimly into my own. And she said it. “It’s not good, is it?” With my own tears rolling down my face, I could only grip her more tightly. As if she was my rock. Or, maybe, to keep from losing her.

To keep from losing her. To keep from losing her, there would be no time to waste. We would start by walking right back down those 10 flights of stairs we had climbed earlier. Because higher levels of physical activity are associated with “improved survival in women diagnosed with breast cancer.” (3)

At lunch, we ordered vegetables because “current research shows that, at every step along the road to malignancy, plant chemicals tend to reduce the likelihood of transmission to the next stage.” (4) And, being in an Italian restaurant, it seemed appropriate to discuss the research article I had read the previous evening. The research indicated that olive oil was a proven adjunctive therapy in the particular type of breast cancer expression that Amy was now determined, more than ever, to beat. (5) And, additionally, fish oils act as an “anti-cancer” cocktail for this same type of cancer. (6)

Certainly, there is no magic bullet for cancer. Just as in the Las Vegas casino, you probably don’t want to pin all your hopes, all your bets, on one therapy. For Amy, we will consider all determinants of this disease – toxicity, inflammation, lifestyle, stress, sleep disturbances, protein malnutrition, vitamin and mineral deficiency, genetics, hormones, immune dysfunction, and infection. And we will consider all options for healing. Including medicinal mushrooms. A bright spot of hope.


1) http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0910064
2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22339703
3) http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/18/1/306.short
4) Marwick, C. Learning how phytochemicals help fight disease. JAMA. 1995;274:1328-1330. Nov 1, 1995.
5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15642702
6) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17134970


NOTE: For the purposes of this blog, I have changed the name of my friend to Amy.