Inviting Cancer.... ( request serious answers please )?

Question

I am always keen to know and understand your opinions on a certain aspect of cancer having been through the pain and miseries of the same. How many of you - survivors or others feel we actually invite cancer into our lives with our life styles, denials and the scare of visiting the doctor to be told that one may have cancer? I know noone wants to invite cancer, but all of us do some real crazy things that helps cancer walk into our lives. We are all aware of the consequences of those crazy things, but we still do it imagining that cancer can never hit us. Its always the other person who is prone to get it. Its only when one lands up getting it these sort of questions arise.
I look forward to your answers as it would give me a great insight of what you all feel. I am supposed to give a talk at a cancer seminar on this topic and hence welcome your help. I have been lucky to get some great answers here and hope to receive replies from those who feel we do invite the cancer.

Answer 1

No one "invites" cancer - but some people do things to make the chances go up.

I cannot belive some of the answers here that infer that everyone that gets cancer "did something" and deserves it in some way. just not true and they are wishfully thinking that they have "control" over everything so they will not get it.

So to all the people that say if you eat this or think that or meditate or take this minieral etc just remember that when you are walking down the street you could breath in one molecule of something nasty that gets into you system that changes one gene in one cell and 3 years from now that cell's great great great... grandson mutates to cancer. The is nothing you can do about that one.

Yes if you spend too much time int he sun or smoke or other things you may get cancer but you may not either. At the end of the day, it is the luck of the draw. You cna excersize and eat right and do all the right things and still get it.


As far as cancer - until the guy in the white coat comes in and tells you you have it you really don't understand. I thought I "understood" when my dad and grandma and friends got it but till it is YOU, you really don't get it.

Everyone thinks they are going to live to be 80 or 90, then that guy comes in and tells you that you will be "gone" in 5 years. No one is ready for that conversation and you really never get fully by it afterwords. It is always "right behind your eyelids" 24x7.

Thanks for letting me rant today - I have 3 hours in chair #5 at the UM Cancer Center this afternoon and that always puts me in a bad mood.

Jewells
29 months and still here

Answer 2

I think people are really sacred of even the word"cancer". Today scientists know so much more than in the past. Today it doesn't have to mean a death sentence. I never thought I'd ever hear those words "you have cancer", but I did. I use to often think if I would have taken better care of myself or had gone to the Dr. on a more regular basis maybe I wouldn't be going through all this now. Would've, should've, could've. All I can do is look to a brighter future and make the necessary changes and when all of this is over, I'll be all the stronger for having gone through it. Hope I've helped.

Answer 3

My husband is a malignant melanoma 9 year survivor.

When he was young he and I both would be about in the sun, no sun tan lotion and just enjoying our tans later. Gosh if we new then what we know now.

My hubby was not given a good prognosis, his cancer was a Clarks level 4 and had spread into his lymphnodes. His cancer started out the size of a dime, then the margins got bigger, now his back looks like a moray eel has taken a chunk out of his right shoulder.
From his surgeries he has had his nerve strand in his back severed and has limited motion in his arm, But thats a small price to pay.

Yes, what we fear can come quicker than anything, but being blind to it and turning our heads does not help either. There are so many out there that have moles and tan....they should get checked, but their the ones that sit and just say its a lil mole.

Our fam has seen its share, so, wearing blinders in life is not what we do now. We watch, are aware, talk, and just plain observe.

Good luck

Answer 4

i think it really depends on the type of cancer. some cancers might be preventable with improvements in diet, lifestyle. the people who have done least to 'invite' cancer are probably kids--and there are a whole lot of kids out there learning to survive. sadly, as the saying goes, life is a fatal condition. at least for now.

but let me ask a question--if what we're really after is not a cure for cancer, but a cure for death, why don't we think of the science related to curing cancer that way ? ....i mean, scientists usually talk about cancer 'treatment' when maybe the science itself is really more about cancer 'research' .... and if that's the case, aren't cancer 'victims' and cancer 'survivors' really cancer 'test subjects' ?

or am i the only one who felt like a walking experiment during 'treatment' ?

not that there's anything wrong with scientists using human beings as test subjects...or is there? i think there is a good chance that using people that way is wrong....so i really wonder if there's something wrong with the way we as a civilization are trying to cure death (if that's what medical science really is all about).

Answer 5

I don't think we actually "invite" cancer but I do believe that we are susceptible to cancer, and maybe other illness, when we have been through extreme stress of kind. The evidence appears to support the effect of extreme stress on the body is to depress the immune system. I do not mean ordinary stress here, but serious stress, like the death of a close family member, divorce, loss of a child etc. or two major stresses coming close together.
In my personal experience, I had breast cancer diagnosed 1 year after losing both of my parents 3 months apart.

Answer 6

It's an interesting subject. I think we do, on some level, invite cancer into our lives. There's this mentality of "I know what I'm doing is bad for me, but I don't have to deal with those consequences right now." We're able to overlook the negatives of our actions for awhile. And then cancer knocks on our door and it becomes the "Shoulda, coulda, woulda" game. I'm not saying that all forms of cancer are directly due to our vices or actions, but some are.

Answer 7

i'd tend to agree with you. life these days is crazy. job stress has gone up, people are taking pick-me-ups instead of looking after their bodies and the stability once enjoyed in knowing you had a job more or less for life, that you'd marry and never break up and that a semi clean life was good enough is now gone. i think our bodies are getting far more fatigued these days and due to hyper cleaniness our immune system isn't what is was years ago.
i would say that there are a lot of people inviting poor health in general, never mind cancer. a binge drinking, drug taking culture has emerged, and it is abusing our bodies. i think there is general apathy regarding cancer because it's seen as something still that may happen years in the future, so there's no point in worrying about it now. i think it goes in the same category of thinking as death. we know it's going to happen, but hopefully no time soon.

Answer 8

my husband expected to get cancer due to his work enviroment(automotive technician) with all the chemicals, asbestos,acids etc. He did get cancer but not related at all to his work, he got hodgins disease instead.The way we see it the air we breathe, the water we drink, the foods we eat all could be possible sources of cancer in some people who are more prone to cancers. My father in law is a heavy smoker but he got bone cancer instead of lung cancer, why? Did he invite it ? Is it bad luck ? Who knows, hopefully we will find the answers soon.By the way my husband and his dad found out within days of each other that they ha cancer. weird.

Answer 9

You know lifestyles and the world of science and synthetics make interesting conversation for cancer. Allow me to tell you though about a dear friend of mine. He was bit by a simple little mosquito, got a bump from said bite, and bite didn't heal. Bump became cancerous.

Next scenario, my late fiance' worked for a major utlility company and began his career with them at a nuclear station. On quite a few occassions supposedly he was hit with a few more than what was normally allowed in a year at one time. He was a mechanic. No wonder his company paid for everything during his treatment until his death.

I would love to push for regular screenings of individuals regularly exposed to radiation and other modes of exposure. Would you broach this subject at your seminar?

The guy in my first scenario worked with lasers and uv acrylates in optical fibering.

Answer 10

ok, people exposed to sun UV will get a higher risk. Also people eating diets low in vegetables especially beans have a high risk of cancer, especially colon cancer. Young children especially under 16 having sex with multiple partners increase the risk of uterine cancer. Males having multiple partners have the risk of developing prostate cancer. People exposed to genetically inherited cancers such as breast cancer have higher risk of developing breast cancer, and must go for mammogram at least every 1 year. I don't really think obesity leads to cancer like ppl mentioned. people should cut smoking and binge drinking!

Hope it was helpful