Why Am I Passionate About Fighting Chronic Disease?

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s it was common that we would have an occasional Sunday meal with grandparents on either mom’s or dad’s side of the family. Sometimes, on special occasions, both sides were represented at the same event.

During these gatherings the adults often talked among themselves about the goings-on in the town. Usually those conversations just flowed past me because I did not know the people involved. Occasionally there was mention of so and so getting cancer. The thing is that this was not the rare occurrence you might expect. The way the adults talked about it, this was a major concern because of the apparently large numbers of people contracting the disease in our area, just West of Ottawa.

The fear was warranted. At that time, a diagnosis of cancer was a death sentence. There were no effective treatments. The doctors used antibiotics to fight the infections that appeared routinely because the patient’s immune system was weakened. Toward the end they provided strong narcotics to deal with the pain of organs shutting down. But there was virtually nothing that was effective against the cancer itself. Later, chemotherapy was employed to attack the tumors – but that often was perceived as worse than the disease itself.

Certainly smoking contributed to the cancer rate (at the time loudly denied by the tobacco companies). However, smoking was a common pastime across the country. So that did not account for the much higher cancer rate apparent in our area.

If you asked anyone in town why so many people were getting cancer, the uniform answer was that we were downwind of the Chalk River nuclear research site. But the government told us it was safe and there had been no leaks at any time. Based on my rudimentary research years later, I concluded that the cancer rate in the Ottawa Valley downwind of the Chalk River facility was higher than anywhere else in the country. In the face of government denials, we were simply left with our own suspicions.

Regardless, this increasingly high incidence of what, at the time, was a fatal chronic disease had a lasting impact on me. And it seemed, as time passed, that the incidence of a variety of other chronic diseases was also on the rise. However, I concluded that there did not appear to be much I could do about it. So I pushed the concern into the background.

A few years ago I got involved with at business that seemed to have a positive impact on a variety of chronic conditions and other health challenges. That provided the opportunity for me to channel this passion to help people who were fighting chronic disease. It is rewarding to make a difference in people’s lives.

So why am I writing about this now?

I recently read a post that contained this: “President Carter, the 39th President of the United States, once personally saved Ottawa from a Nuclear Disaster, at risk to his own life, suffering from the effects of radiation poisoning all his life. Canada had a Nuclear Accident in the 50s and asked the US for help. Lieutenant Jimmy Carter lead a team out of New York.”

Despite government assurances at the time, we now have evidence that there was indeed a nuclear accident at Chalk River (Ref. 1 and Ref.2). Who knows – there may have been others.

It is interesting how the human mind works. Snippets of conversation around a dining room table. Stories of friends and relatives becoming ill at rates that were historically unusual. All that percolating in the subconscious over years. And then, an opportunity to have perhaps a positive impact.

Result: a personal mission.

My father died of cancer. My aunt, my mother’s sister, died of cancer. Her husband died of cancer. My brother died far too soon of leukemia, a form of cancer. Other family members have experienced a variety of different chronic diseases.