Dispatches from the War on Cancer: Detection as Prevention, Chronic Disease as Cure
Ten years ago on June 25, 2008, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. My grandmother passed away the night before. She was just two weeks shy of her 96 th birthday. I had planned to spend it with her. Instead, I re-routed the frequent flier miles I was to use for that visit to a plane ticket for my mother, who had now just lost her own mother, to be with me for my immediate surgery. Needless to say, this was one of the worst days of my life as well as my mother’s. Mortality had reached my beloved grandmother, and in nearly the same instant, had come for me. After finding a tumor in my colon, following a colonoscopy necessitated by several alarming symptoms that had progressed over five years, the results of the toxicology test on my tumor confirmed its malignancy. This shocked my doctor because I had no known risk factors, but I was not surprised. Though I followed a fairly impeccable vegetarian diet for the preceding 15-20 years full of a plethora of whole food - largely from t