Why do I run against cancers?
This Saturday I was running against cancer. It is the least I can do, I think, as I did not pay any reasonable attention to cancer in the past year. Since the last run. Or did I? Is it a thing of fashion for me, a statement to share on my twitter account?
The fact is: every day when I wake up and when I go to bed I am increasingly anxious because I still did not manage to tackle early cancer detection, as did no one else on this planet. Not successfully, not globally, and not that it really changed the game we are playing against the disease.
So, I opt to run 5 km, it enables me to connect with the disease in a way that I need, to see it as MY adversary, as something that I still care deeply about, and with each turn of the path, I envision how cancer cells spread through our bodies.
Cancers are a part of us, as much as we are a part of them, eternally connected. They are a brewing mass, full of energy, just like we were at the start of the race, eager to leave the sweaty, crowded mass, and at the same time belonging to it, and getting the so much needed energy and a sense of a direction from it.
…and then the spread starts via the paths that I see as vessels, where the lymph makes way to the overpowering amount of cancer cells, passing pulsating organs, just like we, the runners did pass the support drummers on the road. That is what I am thinking about. We expand and contract, take shortcuts, persevere and give up, stay connected to the fellow friend next to us, or be a lone gunman in a search of its goal. While I am in a running mode going through the vasculature of the park I wish of nothing else but to finish the race, that is my only goal. To pass the finish and get the alcohol free beer to reward my thirst. As we pass through the goal cancer cells do too, too often and too deadly.
Cancers will be detected early, this is not just a crazy dream, or a wish. This is a possibility and a reality that mobile phone technology and wearable sensors made available. THEY WILL be beaten, probably to make space for another disease that will be left to someone else to fight it.
We are aiming at the age of maintenance of health, real ownership of our own health will be shifted to us, individuals inhabiting the body. We are provided the power to detect and timely cure the beasts. There is a value in long-term tracking, it enables us to better understand and control healthy us. Consequently, it will enable us to react on time, when the disease starts forming.
This earlier detection will have global reach, most of us can be reached via mobile phones. It has a power to make healthcare cheaper, better and more available. This should happen. It should happen soon.
In the meantime, I will run for breast and the other cancers as much as I can, the same as it will be my first and last thought of the day: how to protect from, prevent and early detect.
