What Did I Do? Syndrome
By Sharon Anderson MSW
4/7/24
I wish I had a dollar for every time a new support group member comes up with a theory on why they got cancer. I, myself pondered if my cancer was due to all the microwave popcorn I ate. Others are convinced it was from the Goo Be Gone they spilled and cleaned up, from getting a divorce, bug spray, dry cleaning, diet soda or from their cat’s litter box. The list goes on and on. It’s human nature to want to know what caused our cancer. And to guess.
The American Cancer Society comes out each year with a new list of known, suspected and reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens in our environment. The lists become longer every year. It includes viruses, chemicals, hormones, foods, plastics, medicines and the sun. It can be frightening. It makes me ask outload, “what doesn’t give us cancer?”
We know for a fact that our cancer happened when there was a mutation to a single cell. Our bodies are made up of more than a hundred million, million (100,000,000,000,000) cells. The cells are constantly dividing and reproducing themselves. Sometimes a change happens in the genes when a cell divides. This is a mutation. It means that a gene has been damaged or lost or copied too many times. Abnormal proteins are made that give the wrong directions to the cell. It can take many years for a damaged cell to divide and grow and form a tumor big enough to cause symptoms or show up on a scan.
What caused that mutation? A random mistake, genetics or environment? That is the million-dollar question that causes so much angst among cancer patients. And how will we ever know, for sure? Yet, we want to know. Specifically, we want to know, could I have prevented this? Did I directly do something wrong?
Personally, I’m good with the story that my body made a genetic mistake on its own. After all, cells divide and multiply over and over every second. Nature makes mistakes! And our own immune system doesn’t always recognize the mutated cell as a bad guy… because it’s part of our own body. You can be the healthiest person in the world… happy, doing your yoga, meditating daily and eating vegan…but your immune system will pass that cancer cell right by.
What finally convinced me was a friend who was a health “nut” to an extreme. She worked an organic grocery store, wouldn’t use a microwave, or deodorant, and get this… she even made her own tampons. She got cancer. I felt like, even if I took all the preventions she did, there are just no guarantees.
If that is the case, I have nothing to be mad at anymore. No guilt that I did or didn’t do something. No one to fight… no one to sue. No one to save. Just the challenge of acceptance. We are not perfect.
Sharon Anderson is a 22-year survivor of leiomyosarcoma, a very rare cancer of the soft tissues. She is President of Leiomyosarcoma Support & Direct Research Foundation (LMSDR) www.LMSDR.org.
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