Urban Scout Discovers Cure For Cancer!

I don’t see any other gentle way of saying this; I have cancer. Don’t freak out now, it won’t kill me. I found out a while ago, but haven’t said anything because I wanted to learn more about it before sharing something this personal with the world. They call it, “basal cell carcinoma.” It refers to a superficial, slow-growing skin cancer. Since it happens to live in the crook of my nostril I don’t feel so scared about it (aside from the horrific Michael Jackson fantasies).

I’ve had this darn bump on my nostril for a while now, I guess two or three years. I never really thought about it, but periodically it would bleed and bleed and bleed. It had a hard time clotting I guess. I don’t have health insurance and as you know sort of live as a wandering vagrant, which makes me able to receive some special health care in Oregon. I had my doctor freeze it off twice and he said if it came back a third time we would need to biopsy it, which it did and we did and it came back cancer.

I generally can keep cool over these kinds of things. Having no insurance has kept me in a spiral of referrals to different clinics here and there. I feel thankful that I can get help for free and simultaneously anxious at having to jump through hoops in order to receive that help. One of the doctors I saw said he thought that I had not aged enough to have this kind of cancer, that at 25 years, I shouldn’t have it. Generally, old men get it. He looked at the slide himself and changed his mind, yes, you do have it.

At first I calmed myself. Took a few deep breaths. “It won’t kill me. I can take care of it.” But the more it “didn’t feel like a big deal” the worse I felt. I mean, cancer right? Who cares if it won’t kill me. The fact that I have any kind of cancer at all should never feel okay. Cancer has become normalized. Even though I still have youthfulness and “shouldn’t” get this particular kind… It still feels normal. Normal like the flu or a cold. That, to me, makes the whole thing feel even worse.

I go in for micro-surgery in a few months. Basically, they take off layer-by-layer of your skin and put it under a microscope until they no longer see cancerous cells. This means they may go in just a bit, or they may go in a lot. Basal cell carcinoma does not grow fast, so hopefully my nose will not get too fucked up during this surgery… But they did say they would put me in touch with a “facial reconstructive surgeon,” which scared the fucking hell out of me at first. But then I thought, “Meh. It will just add more to my character.” Every time I look in the mirror I will remember what civilization has done to my face, and hate it even more! Like some sort of villain in a Batman comic; “You made me!” Only, in this comic, civilization looks like the villain and I look like a fucking saint.

So, aside from that, I figured out the cure for cancer; DISMANTLE CIVILIZATION NOW. Well, it may not “cure” cancer, but it will prevent it from ever happening. How many tumors, cysts and cancers have you had? How many more do you want?

And speaking of cancer, comics and dismantling civilization, Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan have put out a hilarious graphic novel called As The World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Stay In Denial. You’ll laugh… You’ll cry… You’ll take action.

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Posted: November 9, 2007 by

Category: General Blog, Hazards

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14 Comments on “Urban Scout Discovers Cure For Cancer!”

  1. I work at ONS now, so cancer’s been big on my mind lately. You’re absolutely right, the very fact that it happens so much should enrage us. It’s really been difficult reconciling the passivity about civilization on the one hand, and seeing the toll it takes so up close and personal every day making my daily bread on the other.

    For what it’s worth, most people are living with cancer pretty much all the time these days. And just like you said, that should infuriate us. How many times does civilization have to murder your family, your friends, your lovers, your mothers, your brothers and sisters, before you get mad and do something about it?

  2. My little sister had an “abnormal” bump/growth on her face that was removed and it only left a small scar… hardly noticeable. My mom had a cancerous mole which was removed also. I think that skin cancer like that is the “best?” kind to have because of the likeability of it being removed and only leaving a surface scar. Let us know how it goes! In the meantime, you or penny should try to get a job at Powell’s books! They have GREAT insurance! I was thinking about trying to get a job there when i move back to portland, but my ex works there and we are trying to work things out with us, so I would probably just get back on his when I move back… It was really great to have insurance. The first time in my life I really apreciated it (haven’t had it since college) since I have had an ongoing health problem but never sought treatment for lack of insurance…

  4. i’m very sad to read this. you’ll be fine. it’s not fair. i’ve long thought that civilization is like unto a great cancer on the planet and eventually the big doctor will remove us layer by layer, or else we’ll kill our host entirely. how ironic that you have this little reminder in your body, both likely caused by and exemplifying the macrocosmic reality that you are working to heal. be well. keep fighting the good fight.

  5. I think it is interesting that cancer has invaded us over the years. Ten years ago there were few people I knew who had cancer, but lately it seems that folks all around me are plagued with this, well, whatever it is that cancer is. I find it disturbing that for all the money that has been dumped into organizations like the American Cancer Society and others for over fifty years, all we get for cutting edge treatment is surgery, radiation or chemotherapy. Nothing has changed at all. We still really don’t know what causes cancer, at least not officially. Our only clue is the labels on some of the products we buy that have the Surgeon Generals warnng that it may cause cancer. What I find contradicting is the thought that many of these chemicals cause cancer, yet the favorite treatment involves brutal chemicals. Hugh. Some ‘cure’. You will not find a western doctor who will tell you what caused your cancer. I mean, how did you get it in the first place? How will removing a growth superficially prevent it from inevitably returning in the first place? To ‘beat’ cancer will involve getting to the source of the problem, otherwise you are just treating the symptom of the cancer, and not the cancer itself. But then again, organised medicine made its empire on treating the symptom, and rarely treats any problem, really causing more problems than cures. I’m sure you may have thought of this, but you need to begin looking into your lifestyle and search for what you may be doing to help create the environment that cancer enjoys. What are you putting into your body? For many people, the first place to look is in your food. All those additives and preservatives, synthetic vitamins, etc. I’m guessing that your ‘wandering vagrant’ lifestyle may leave you with limited choices on food quality, but I am a first time reader, so I don’t know that much about you. I find that people are generally responsible for their state of being. If you are sick, it is probably due to choices you have made in your past. For now, I came across a good blood purifier tonic that I want to make, but haven’t gathered the ingredients for yet: http://www.newstarget.com/022091.html
    If I finish a batch I’ll’ send you some! Good luck. There’s a lot of research out there. Somewhere.

  6. Two consecutive entries about how sh!t carries a purpose…

    Rampant cancer’s silver lining: another reason to WAKE UP AND DISMANTLE CIVILIZATION! At day’s end, what else to work towards? Even the *best* civilization irresistibly works to collapse.

    Unfortunately for us and future generations, dismantling toxi-cities only turns off the “shit” faucet. What about remediating all the environmental pollution of past and present?

    1,188,273 tons — the 2002 reported worldwide stock of depleted Uranium. Half life: 4.5 billion years — damn close to the estimated age of planet Earth. I won’t go on ad nauseum with statistics…this alone, quite the kick in the stomach.

    One big pile of shite — quite a loooooong stay for Uncle Bumps.

    Lucky for us, plenty of lifeforms (and maybe spirits, too) love to eat shit and transmute “one man’s waste” into another’s food. Thank gods for the soil cycle. I pray then for something akin to the giant mushroom forests of “Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind”.

    Check out Paul Stamet’s (www.fungiperfecti.com) “Mycellium Running” to catch the spore of the mushroom revolution. Who knows what might fruit from the composting of civilization’s worst excesses?

    I feel you Scout. Cancer sucks. I wish you an agile recovery.

  7. Hey Danibal,

    I agree. However, my diet is very good these days. I eat mostly organic produce and free range/hormone free/anti-biotic free meats. I eat little “processed food.” I eat no grains other than occasional corn tortillas or chips.

    I have had chronic sinus infections since I can remember, and when I stopped eating milk and wheat, they miraculously went away.

    Aside from that, I had a tooth implant, where they drill a metal rod into your skull. Interestingly enough, the bump sits right where the implant ends and appeared shortly after… Could have been disturbed by the metal… Combine that disturbance with my former smoking habit… who knows? Civilized diet, civilized perception of appearance, with civilized drugs to regulate my civilized self-hatred. Awesome.

    Fuck implants. I’ll never get another one. Let my teeth go. Fuck permanance.

  8. Williaum,

    Funny, I was thinking the same thing about Nausicaa. I’m actually reading Mycelium Running right now (among other similar books) and simultaneously writing an anti-civ review of the book, where I mention Nausicaa.

    Thanks for the lament.

  10. We know exactly what causes cancer. That’s no mystery. When your cells divide, the DNA isn’t copied perfectly. So you have “junk” DNA on the ends that’s OK to lose, it’s made to be lost, called telomeres. Every time your DNA is copied, you lose a little bit of telomere, and when that runs out, what’s supposed to happen is that you stop reproducing from that cell. So your cells will only reproduce so many times. Your cells keep dying, but you reach a point where they’re no longer replaced. We call that aging. Dying of old age? You pass the threshold of how many cells you can lose without replacement.

    Cancer begins with mutation. Any mutation. Radiation, chemicals, whatever the case may be, it doesn’t really matter, your cells become mutated and instead of stopping, they go ahead and reproduce some more after the telomere is all gone. Now, they’re cutting into real DNA. They no longer have the same DNA as the rest of the body, so they no longer recognize that they’re part of a body. They look around, and see no other cells near them, so they reproduce to fill in all that empty space (that’s filled with healthy cells). But they don’t stop there, because each time they reproduce, they’re cutting into more real DNA, so they don’t recognize any of their children, either; and their children have the same problem. So all of them keep reproducing, constantly, oblivious to anything around them.

    Now here’s the thing: all of us, everyone, even perfectly healthy people, are producing cancerous cells like these all the time. Even in the healthiest environment imaginable, there’s still umpteen million things that can cause cancer. That’s fine, because what does your immune system do? It goes around looking for things that are “not you,” and eats them up. And that’s very much the problem with cancer, isn’t it? So your immune system recognizes cancer cells as “not you,” and destroys them. Even someone who’s perfectly healthy is producing quite a few cancer cells every day, but it’s OK, because the immune system eats them all.

    So, when cancer becomes noticeable, it’s always caused by one of two things (and usually both): a weakened immune system, or a higher rate of cancer cell production. It happens when you’re producing cancer cells so quickly that your immune system can’t keep up, and that might be either because you’re producing so many more cancer cells, or your immune system isn’t as quick anymore. And usually, it’s both.

    You’re not going to find any one cause for that. There’s a huge number of things that could cause either or both of those. But it’s not any kind of mysterious mechanism. We know exactly what causes cancer, and that’s it. We even know thousands of different things that will cause that to happen, and yes, pretty much all of them come back down to just civilization.

  11. Thanks Jason. yeah, that about sums it up. My immune system was shot for like three years. Basically I kept supressing a sinus infection with alcohol and cigarettes, plus a surgery in the middle. Whammo! Hopefully it doesn’t go all the way down to my skull…

  12. I joined up just to say good luck with this thing! Reishi Tea, Turkey Tail tea, are a great one-two combo of fungal cancer remedies, and they are widely available. Looking forward to your review of MR. Good luck and long journey, dude!