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caregiver's comments
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Apr 06, 2010 - 7:51 am
What do you say to a caregiver who thinks drinking beer is the cause of her husband's cancer? Or that surgery will cause the cancer to spread? How do we educate people on this? I am a 3 year survivor and find it hard that someone would think this way? |
Joined: Oct 2008
I'd say, with a smile on my face and a gentle hand on her arm, "Oh, I don't think that's true! People who never touched alcohol in their life get cancer! Look at the innocent children that get cancer, through no fault of their own! I know that I personally didn't do ANYTHING that contributed to my cancer, and I'll bet your husband's beer didn't play any role in his getting cancer either. And surgery sure didn't cause MY cancer to spread, so please don't let that old wive's tale cause you any worry." And I'd give her a hug, offer my help (if I wanted to get involved: be careful here. HA!)
Joined: Sep 2006
You don't say what kind of cancer or where it is located, so it is hard to refute the caregiver's notion with respect to alcohol. I am a head/neck and lung cancer survivor and am confident that alcohol may very well have been an agent in development of the head/neck cancer at least: 95% of head/neck cancer patients as of my diagnosis in 2005 were either smokers or smokers/drinkers.
Alcohol is a known cancer agent, in fact, so I am curious as to how cigarettes got such a bad rap (deserved) while alcohol was allowed to slide.
Even so, it is too simple to say that alcohol caused someone's cancer. The latest research on cancer causes looks to some rather intricate interweaving of genetics, environment AND behavior (such as drinking beer or sucking in rat poison, I mean nicotine) and find that any combination of the three may lead to a cancer result. The beer, tha