What is the point

[wombat4]

I have become very philosophical lately. and my mind turned to the purpose of cancer in this world. Everything that I can think of has a survival instinct that is automatic.If we fall into a river the survival instinct takes over to help us survive and keep our heads above water, the flight or fight adrenaline rush when we feel under threat, even when we are unconscious our bodies first instinct is for the bodies survival. Anti bodies are produced to help us with our infections.Our blood will clot in some circumstances to we do not bleed continuously, This is the same for animals, and for plants that will seal up a cut to prevent moisture loss and infection getting in. Everything seems to have a built in instinct for survival. So I ask myself, what is the point in this world of cancer. It undermines the bodies natural defences by starting of as a single cell and not being recognised by the bodies defences as a threat, its only purpose and intention is to grow in the body and ultimately do its best ( without intervention) to interfere with internal organs of its host. its only purpose its aim, its reason for being, is to destroy the systems that are keeping it alive, but in doing so, it destroys its host and ultimately itself, thus going against all the principles of being, of living, and surviving, even for itself. I can not think of any other organism in the world that only, has the intention of self destruction. Any ideas ?, answers like, god wants them the host for a moonbeam,ray of sunshine, angel or bright star, do not rate. Take care all wombat4

[Shell83]

Hmmm.. Made me think of a suicide bomber! I don't know, I've got nothing Wombat.. Only that some things just don't make sense.. Or is it some genetic mutation that will only occur if you are exposed to or ingest x y or z at this certain point in your life.. The human body hey, blows my mind just how complex we are. Hope you get a better answer than my blonde speculations but in the meantime I hope I gave you a smile! X

[SILLY]

What about all the auto-immune diseases? The body thinks it's being attacked and fights back but it is fighting its own healthy cells . Crazy. We won't find an answer to these questions.

[Lioness]

I could feel your pain in this blog wombat4, looking for answers that unfortunately are just not there. My Husband always says that during his two year battle nobody has ever asked him anything about himself in detail, other than is he allergic to anything. He believes that there should be a universal questionnaire for all cancer patients. Maybe 100 questions, that ask about your lifestyle in detail, where you have lived, what is your diet, what chemicals you have come into contact with and so on and so on. It would be so easy nowadays to do something like this online and all data be collated and maybe a pattern would emerge. Take care Lioness

[#5]

I dont know, but you have some deep and meaningfuls going on there Wombat, I sometimes think cancer is a by product of our lifestyles, of all the chemicals, preservatives etc that are added to everyday food. Eg, Ive seen articles on hamburgers bought from McDonalds, left for years and still look the same as when they were first purchased. If an additive can do that to food, what the hell is it doing to our bodies when we eat it. Mind you I stay away from fast food outlets, I drink rain water from our tanks, I dont go anywhere near tap water, bottled water is my 2nd choice but nothing matches the pure rain from the skies. Look at all the chemicals added to water from your taps, nahhh not for me. And then I think its just natures way of culling us, the same as what we do to other species on this planet, Mother Earth has her own agenda to deal with our population. There is so many unanswered questions, I ask why me? What the hell did I do wrong? I didnt rob banks, steal, hurt others, but then I just sit back and go, its the Universal Way, Im sent this for a reason, and thats all. All diseases suck, but Im not going to dwell on the "maybes", I am who I am, I have what I have, I live while I breathe and thats it. Hugs, hope everyone is doing AOK! Leesa

[SILLY]

Lioness, I have thought about such a questionnaire too. My cancer has been known for over 150 years and today they still cannot link it to any environmental factors. They do know that a genetic fusion occurs but not what causes this. As it is a rare cancer less is known . Often it has been studied but sometimes grouped with other head and neck cancers ,with a small number representing this cancer. Many studies have been done by researching records when a lot of of patients are dead . I am in contact with others ,a few Australians ,many from the USA and a few in Europe with the same cancer and some have been discussing what could be the cause ,wondering what we have in common.

[glenys48woods]

Hi Wombat, I feel for you Glenys

[rarsie]

Well I think its got a hell of a lot to do with plastic. Back in the day when not so many people had this disease we had... glass milk bottles not plastic, glass juice bottles not plastic, glass baby bottles not plastic or breast, we didnt get plastic bags when we went shopping they were paper, all food was wrapped in paper, Butchers, Bakers and so on. everything is plastic, Car parts, chairs tables kids toys it just goes on and on. Even bottle beer has plastic in it. Think about it they certaintly make a lot of money from plastic rarsie

[peanutz]

I sometimes think all things happen for good reasons. I know it seems naive to think like that. I wondered why I had to see my dad having stroke when I was 13 y/o. Why did I have to experience all that? I guess in some ways it helped me to spot when my partner had stroke like symptoms and forced him to see a GP and then found out he has GBM instead. It's not a good finding but we did find it when my partner thought he had some virus and it would clear up with a few days rest. Some good things of cancer that I can come up are to advance the medical science and to make us appreciate our lives and people around us more.

[JohnK]

You raise an interesting question Wombat4: interesting on a religious/philosophical and medical/scientific level. I am not a person of faith (although I sometimes envy those that are) and will therefore leave that aspect to one side. But I do know something about the history of diseases and medicine generally and would like to address that aspect. A cancer cell is a cell in our own body that has mutated and gone rogue. It is not that it is acting unnaturally; it is simply no longer obeying the rules and following the same genetic program for survival that the non-mutated cells follow. That it is part of us is why our own immune system ignores it and the new mutated cells can divide and grow. Of course cell mutation is not always bad. It can sometimes be beneficial for the organism it resides in; it is thought to be responsible for much of our evolutionary development for instance. Some of your respondents have raised the issue of environmental factors (plastic) causing more cancer today than in the past. There are a few points I would like to make about this. First of all life expectancy has risen dramatically in the last century or so. While cancers themselves are not necessarily age related, it is a simple statistical fact that the longer a population lives the more cases of cancer there will be. Secondly, with modern medicine has come an exponential growth in the identification of new diseases. It is not that cancers did not exist in the past they simply had not been identified. Many of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century deaths from ‘lung disease’ and ‘pneumonia’, or ‘liver disease’ and ‘peritonitis’ might well have been diagnosed as deaths from cancer had they taken place today. Finally, it is true that some diseases are products of modernity. But often in not quite the way we think. Take Polio. Poliomyelitis (or infantile paralysis) is a virus transmitted via the fecal-oral route. The incidence of polio increased dramatically in the western developed world in the early 20th century. But the reasons for the epidemic are complex: it turns out it was a product of improvements in modern hygiene. This sound counter-intuitive I know, but when you realise that in very young babies the polio virus produces little more than a high fever, but in older children it attacks the central nervous system, you can see why an early exposure to the polio virus could produced immunity in the population before the days of clean piped water and modern sewerage. Sometimes even cleanliness can be harmful. I guess my point in all of this is we know very little about what causes cancer other than a mutating cell going rogue. In the case of my wife’s cancer she did none of the things that are supposed to increase ones' risk, smoking, drinking, eating fatty foods etc. When I think about it I started this response wanting to disagree with you. I guess I have ended up agreeing. There is no point. Take care of yourself Wombat4 John K

[tikipop]

There actually is a research study going on at the moment that involves a questionaire on lifestyle/environmental factors and an optional blood test. There was a pamphlet for it in an information pack a friend at the cancer council sent us (it was very helpful with lots of information!) I'm not sure how it is conducted, but I will find it and post the details. Sounds like there are many potential participants!

[tikipop]

http://clearstudy.org.au/ Participation is only available for people over 18, living in NSW who have been diagnosed with cancer for the first time in the past 18 months.

[SILLY]

I agree with John on many points. As people are living longer and new diagnostic techniques are available more cancers are being found .In days long ago people may have died from undetected cancers and when it was put down to another illness. Others may have had cancers and not known and did die from something else. The longer we live ,the more chance of getting some kind of cancer. John made other valid points as well. Many risk factors are linked to many cancers but they are not necessarily the causes. Some cancers have not been linked to any risk factors. It seems there is still so much more to be learned in genetic studies. In my cancer the only common thing discovered in all teast samples is a fusion gene but they are yet to discover why these genes fuse together. The next generation will know so much more.

[tikipop]

http://clearstudy.org.au/