The Farrah Fawcett Documentary
Well, did you watch it? With all of the American Idol hype, what should have been one of the most import human interest/human impact programs on television may have largely gotten suppressed in the shuffle. Don’t get me wrong, I am into American Idol, especially since one of the two finalists is from my home state. However, the Farrah Fawcett documentary last Friday evening deserved and needed everyone’s attention. It depicted the physical, emotional, and spiritual struggle of cancer in a way that is rarely revealed in our society. It was not comfortable. It was agonizing. Although most of us have experienced the disease directly or indirectly, being drawn in to the personal battle of a Hollywood icon captures us in a different way. Those who watched it should find it a little more difficult to shield themselves from reality. We need to be reminded of it daily. We need to internalize it, personalize it, and do something about it.
Farrah’s last words in the film included (paraphrased), “Why can’t America accept and approve the alternative (cancer treatment) methods that have been proven successful in other countries.” It is a tragedy that our great nation has not found its way to research and develop much of anything other than the toxic, debilitating drugs and damaging radiation procedures that comprise the conventional treatment modalities for cancer treatment. Ms. Fawcett had to travel to Germany and coordinate the collaboration between German oncologists and her American doctors in order to have the advantage of anything outside of conventional treatment. We must progress beyond this quagmire. Our country and our medical scientists can do better than this.
I regret that this blog post will be my only one for this week. I will be participating in a conference all week. See you next Monday. Keep up the fight in the new strategy for the war on cancer.