LOWERING RISK OF CANCER

W hen I look around at my family members, co-workers, clients and friends, I am seeing almost everyone looking in the mirror at some species of cancer, Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, or whatever. Of cancer alone, 1,600 people are dying every day. The other day, one of them was my own sister-in-law. Other days, it’s been some of my dancing friends that have left me. A few years ago, actually when I was 17 (which was only a few years ago), my own father was taken by liver cancer. They’re all great losses; painful and needless.

Today, if a man looks at another man, he needs to think, “It’s either you or me, Buddy.” And, really, is it always going to be the other guy? If a woman looks at one woman on her left and one woman on her right, she needs to think, “Is it going to be one of those two or me?” And really, is it always going to be one of the other two women? Here’s how we can make sure it will be the other guy or another woman.

We’ll start by understanding what cancer really is . . . a genetic disease, we’re told. So, who or what controls our genes? Let me illustrate:

One day, while driving through mountains in Oregon, I watched a little river that was flowing beside the road. The water was so sparkling clean as it tumbled over the rocks and around the bends. The river was fed by tiny creeks that poured their sparkling water into the river. Each creek made the river grow a tiny bit. Seeing the beauty of it all made me feel refreshed. I wanted to drink that water.

While still far up the mountain, I saw a muddy little creek come out of the trees and pour itself into the sparkling river. The river was big and strong, at that point, and it kept the muddy water along the far shore. As the river and I made our way toward the valley, I watched the muddy water gradually take over until half the river was muddy and the other half was still sparkling clean. When the muddy water finally took over the entire river, the ugly mess made me feel sad. In order to get a refreshing drink of sparkling water, I would have to go back upstream.

Perfect health is like that beautiful, sparkling river. Every aspect of our lifestyle feeds into our river of health like tiny creek-habits. Once in a while a habit will bring in a toxin, non-living chemical, negative attitude or other “Little-ugly” thing. It doesn’t seem to change our body or health so we don’t think to fix it at the source. In a few years the “Little-uglies” turn into “Big-uglies” and we wonder how we ended up in this muddy mess. We run to the “water specialist” who gets out the big, expensive mud filter and schedules us for many treatment sessions. The filters treat the muddy water as it runs into the valley. It works. It gets the water clean again, but who’s going upstream to the tiny creek-habit then following the creek on up to the source of the mud? Who’s healing the mudslides?

Down in the valley of our life, our health-water is clean again for maybe five years, if we’re lucky. Then all the mud comes back.

It’s time to … take charge … Sylvia