Seven Reasons Why I Participate In Clinical Trials

In the past three months I have been participating in a clinical trial.   Here are seven reasons why.

Why a Clinical Trial?

“Double the number of lung cancer patients participating in clinical trials: The Partnership will help patients understand the importance of participating in clinical trials, which can lead to new cutting-edge therapies and treatments, as well as work with physicians to ensure greater participation among their patients. The Partnership will substantially increase the number of lung cancer patients who participate in clinical trials annually from less than one percent of eligible patients to 5 percent”. Free to Breathe -Lung Cancer Partnership

Seven Reasons Why I Participate in Clinical Trials

What to do With the Cremains...? Would You Like to be a Tree?

Is there Life after Life ?

After reading this interesting commercial about turning into a tree after death, I was reminded of an article I wrote several years ago.

This article was about the innovative environmentally friendly methods that were being used to move from this life to the next.

I titled the article" Bury Me Green".  I hope you like it.

By April Brewster Smythe

Boomers just like to change things. It is a fact that they started the first Earth Day and have lifted the sales of organic foods into the stratosphere. Now, though, boomers want to go home green. Not to their earthly homes -no! Home - that place after life. Wherever we might believe it will be. Green funerals and burial products have just begun to find themselves on the national radar.

Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska and New York all require that funeral directors are involved to some degree over that last rite of passage. But, the other 45 states are fine with green goodbyes on private property and privileged handling of the deceased body. Here are seven ways to be eco-savvy after saying goodbye to this good green earth.

1) Request to be wrapped in a natural-fiber shroud. The greatest value concerning a natural fiber shroud is that pollution is eradicated. And you can choose what type of shroud to wear before your demise. No blue suit or silly pink dress for you. It must be made of natural fiber and be biodegrable. 

2) Forget the embalming fluid. I have always felt that being embalmed was pretty gruesome. Although, it is true that the dearly departed would not know that horrible chemicals have been shot through their veins, it is still awful to think that those chemicals are being left behind to seep into future generations. Believe it or not, a projected 827,000 gallons of embalming fluid, which contains cool stuff like methanol, formaldehyde and phenol are buried in America each year.

3) Go home in a pine box. What was good enough for your ancestors before the Civil War can be good enough for you. And from what is being learned, assembling a regular pine casket doesn't take much more than a screwdriver. Many are discussing decorating their pine boxes with symbols of events taken from their lifetime. If they were a mechanic, they could use an impression of a screwdriver to place on the box. Nifty, huh?   I think I would like to have a picture of me paying bills and doing dishes- two of the more frequent activities of my lifetime. 

4) Save the high cost of the traditional funeral. Funerals now cost upwards from 6,000 dollars and that is very cheap. Get a pine box, slip on a shroud and find a nice woodland cemetery and you might depart for as little as one thousand green ones.   Or forget about the box, and get cremated and turn into a tree.  Cremation is cool or should I say HOT! 

5) Ecopad-  If you don't like the idea of a pine box, or even a compost able urn, try the Ecopad. This is a wood coffin shaped in the form of a kayak. Happy sailing!

6) Call for your final resting place to be in a very eco-friendly setting. Since more and more green burial grounds are beginning to take shape, the boomer generation should have no problem with this. Some families have already begun this journey with parents, and other kin. One man stated that he received a kind of healing effect when burying his mother in a woodland area. Using a tree or another type of natural symbol to commemorate the sacredness of the area is also an alternative.

7) Search the Net for green burial grounds. Place the term 'green burials' in a Google search engine and you will receive 1,020,000 hits.

As is apparent, living green has been proven to be a cleaner and more economically feasible way to spend our time here on earth. Why not leave it the same way?

Dumb Things People Say to Us Cancer Survivors ( I Know this is a Poorly Written Headline-after all, I am a Writer...!!)

Recently, Whatnext.com offered an article titled What Not to Say to Someone Who Has Cancer - and I want to state that this article not only had its moments, it was true to the point of catastrophe!

So, I decided to take one comment at a time and respond to each one.   Let me start by saying that I have had about all of these statements spoken to me at some point in my cancer 'journey'.    I guess there is no end to stupid or thoughtless or maybe the real word is uncomfortable.

Because I believe that even while us cancer survivors are still living those who walk around without cancer feel kind of guilty.   Or lucky!    Or superior!

" I probably do not have cancer because I move my legs every night  before I go to bed."  That's a line I heard from a person I would never name.

' Cancer does not run in our family."   Interesting, but probably not true.   Cancer has touched someone in your family.  It might have been your great-uncle Sid who no one knew about - most of us do not know what everyone in our family died of or are currently dying from.

" I have never smoked, eaten a hamburger, and walk 50 miles a day."   Yes, I made this one up- it was unthinkable not to.

There is a condition known as survivors guilt.   It is used in the context of surviving the death of a loved one, or a known one.  There was a movie with some handsome actor where he was the only one who survived a plane crash - he did not only have survivors guilt - he also became fearless and would take crazy walks on high roofs and do balancing acts on skyscrapers.

"Why did he/she die and not me?"  Why am I still here?"   That's survivors guilt.

Believe it or not I think there is LIVING Survivor's Guilt- you know something like the Living Bible, but without the religious overtones.

In the next few days I will begin to respond to each one of these comments that Whatnext.com brought up- till then-  stay off of high roofs and skyscrapers.



"Waylon Jennings was a guitarist for Buddy Holly's band and initially had a seat on the ill-fated aircraft on The Day the Music Died. But Jennings gave up his seat to the sick J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson, only to learn later of the plane's demise. When Holly learned that Jennings was not going to fly, he said, "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up." Jennings responded, "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes." This exchange of words, though made in jest at the time, haunted Jennings for the rest of his life.^[7][8] Jennings, who later became a country music star, expressed survivor's guilt about Richardson's death."

Author's Note:  This quote by Waylon Jennings shows that people can say dumb things even BEFORE someone dies or gets sick.  

BAD LUCK & Cancer

I  have undergone five treatments so far, and had my first CT scan last Friday.  It showed that there was a 7% reduction in tumors, which means I am stable.   Apparently this is good news.  Of course, I was hoping that they would say, "Cancer, what cancer?"   But, I guess you might call that denial.

Sometimes, I have to admit I am a little nervous about participating in a clinical trial.  I knew going in that if I just went ahead and did the chemo again it would put me in remission.  I have been told that going into remission after a chemo you have utilized before doesn't last as long.   My oncologist told me that after all is said and done I will have probably tried all there is to offer.

Actually, the real truth is that cancer sucks!

Recently, a study came out saying that people who get cancer just have bad luck.  Of course, this stirred up a big controversy, especially with those who think that environmental factors play a huge role in the development of cancer.

Since I am not a scientist or any kind of medical professional, I decided to agree with the study.

It is bad luck when a person gets cancer and has to learn to deal with it day after day.  It is bad luck to get a grumpy oncologist who insist on giving an expiration date to a lifetime of plans.   It is bad luck to know that even if you could go back and stomp out that last cigarette you had twenty years ago you would probably still get cancer cause your grandfather, or some other ancient relative had it.

I call that bad luck.

But, for today, I am happy to be alive and kicking.

I call that GOOD LUCK!