Blood cancer is so rare and divided into so many variants, it remains a mystery even for doctors who specialize in blood cancer.  Those of us who are not doctors have the added challenge of misinformation, which is transmitted to us deliberately or otherwise.  Misinformation can happen when people pass on what works for them but may not work for anyone else.  That’s why there are so many fad diets and why they work for a lot of people – but don’t work for a lot of other people.  Everyone is different.  Everyone’s body is different.  And even identical twins, who are genetically the same and who have the same predispositions, are mentally different. 

                Twin studies have been performed by psychologists for the very purpose of understanding the “nurture” cause of how we are and how it may or may not be able to influence the “nature” cause.  Studies of monozygotic or identical twins (genetically, they are the same person or essentially natural clones of each other) have shown that some identical twin pairs separated at birth and reared by separate families, never to meet each other or not meet until they were grown, had chosen similar professions, married similar spouses, and even made some similar life choices.  However, scientists who study twins have observed that a significant number of twins separated at birth have stark differences in their lives compared to their twins’ lives, differences that can be explained by the different environments in which each was reared.  A simpler way to explain this is to imagine two sons of one alcoholic.  We are familiar enough with genetics to understand that each son’s chances of becoming an alcoholic himself are much higher than those of offspring of people who are not alcoholics.  However, imagine one of the sons never encountering alcohol, as unlikely as such a situation may be.  Despite his genetic predisposition to become addicted to alcohol, the son who does not have the opportunity to drink alcohol cannot become an alcoholic.  And so, science has given the religious debate between Predestination and Free Will an answer – both are right.

                As a mental health therapist, I am obligated to believe that however strong the influences of our genetics or even our environments may be, we do have the power to choose to move beyond each.  Every alcoholic has the opportunity to decide to quit.  However hard that may be, however much time it will take, or how many people any given alcoholic may need in order to assure sobriety may vary due to genetic and environmental factors, but I do not believe we have a destiny or fate to which we are chained.  I believe the “winds of change” are always blowing and that each of us is given ample opportunity to catch those winds in the sails of life. 

                But choice does not come without cost.  Some people feel imprisoned by the idea of fate and they fight against it; whereas others feel comforted by the idea that they need not take responsibility for life or their own actions.  On the other side of the coin, some people are frightened by Free Will, thinking everything in their lives is controlled by them and feeling inadequate to make life turn out the way they want or the way they think it should.  Still, some believers in Free Will feel optimistic and unshackled by some Higher Power’s fickle desires.  To what degree are any of these concepts and attitudes correct?  Or even beneficial?

                The answers to those questions are up to us.  And they’re not.

                There are clearly some things we cannot change, such as confusing things like blood cancer or COVID.  But we can change our perception and attitude, realizing hopeful things like the facts that there are different strains of COVID, some less potent than others and that not all blood cancer experiences are alike.

                If someone were to fall into a rushing river and climb up onto a rock in the middle of the river, catching their breath, we would see that person as silly to immediately complain that they are stuck in the river – they should be grateful that they can breathe.  Being stuck is a problem, but not one that needs to be solved as quickly as that of lack of air.  And so we begin to understand the importance of perspective.  Does the drowning person have the free will to complain about how little food they have in their cupboard?  Certainly, but doing so would do little to solve the more immediate problem.  Does a starving person have the free will to complain about the results of the most recent election in their country?  Yes, but only if they understand how one connects to the other.  Will the newly elected official be able to create enough jobs for that starving person to get one and buy food?  Will the newly elected official be able to put enough money into education so the starving person can learn how to perform the job and keep the job and keep buying food? 

                Let’s return to the river for a moment.  The rock in the middle can represent the stability that unchangeable things like scientific facts and logic can give.  But it can also represent rigidity and slavery.  Believers in fate sitting on the rock believe that every detail of their lives is etched into that stone and are therefore unchangeable.  This can give them serenity if they concentrate on the freedom from responsibility this viewpoint gives them.  The river can represent the freedom that changeable things like society and emotions can give.  But it lacks the stability of the rock.  Even if we can imagine our lives in a boat floating down a river, without oars and upper body strength and the experience using those, we are no less doomed than the fatalists on the rock.  We are carried by a force outside ourselves toward a waterfall and likely demise. 

                So what to do?  Both.  Ideally, we should all have a balance of reliance upon both science and mystery, not either/or.  We should use logic but not neglect our emotions.  According to my allegory here, we should tie our boat to the rock.  That way, we receive both the benefits of just enough freedom and just enough stability.  As for the plethora of information available on any subject desirable, we need to realize that the Information Superhighway does not have the rules and restrictions which past generations enjoyed while reading an Encyclopedia.  We cannot trust posts that are not reviewed by professionals with expensive credentials.  Sometimes it’s even a good idea to get a “second opinion” from a different person with similar credentials.  Don’t let this depress you; the fact is that blood cancer is not as well-studied as we would like and the way my body performs with blood cancer may or may not be similar to the way your body would.  The best we can do is to “tie our boats” to the rock of unchangeable things or the least changeable things available or as Alcoholics Anonymous says it, “God, give me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, the strength to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

                It may be scientific fact that you have blood cancer.  It may be etched in stone that your type is currently incurable.  It may be your doctor’s opinion that you have less time to live on this planet than you would have hoped.  These may be things you cannot change, but I urge you to change your perspective.  Doing so may not change anything more than your philosophical reality, but I believe that there really is only one thing in the universe that we do have the power to change – ourselves.

                In March of 2018, I was diagnosed with “Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia” (CLL), which I have since been informed by my specialist is actually a type of lymphoma.  I visited my Primary Care Provider with swollen glands and not much more than the cough which has been my constant winter companion since I was a child.  He sent me to an oncologist/hematologist to “rule out” leukemia.  Unfortunately, it could not be ruled out.  After even a simple blood draw, a group calling themselves leukemia specialists recognized the condition under their microscopes.  But remember – I don’t have leukemia.  I have a misnamed lymphoma. 

                I decided to bravely research as much as I could on the subject and do whatever I could to combat the condition homeopathically in hopes of avoiding chemotherapy.  I am the main breadwinner for my family, and I have three dependent children.  I could not allow anything to keep me from working.  A friend of a friend suggested videos and books by a certain man who apparently beat his cancer with diet.  He basically became an organic vegan.  Such a diet would not be convenient for my work schedule, so I researched more and decided a “plan B” of going off white, processed sugar would be beneficial for my health, even if it did not hold back my CLL.  Unfortunately, my specialist did not see weight loss as a good thing, and he performed a bone marrow biopsy on me.  I told him about my diet, but because I lost 10 pounds in 6 weeks, he was convinced my condition was being extremely aggressive.  This same specialist talked to me about treatment called ibrutinib.  The only question I had was whether or not it was chemotherapy.  He said it was.  I researched on the website of one of the makers of ibrutinib and interviewed medical friends and learned that ibrutinib is definitely not chemotherapy. 

                So I have a new specialist.  I have to drive twice as long to get to him as the first one, but he seems much more learned in CLL, being specifically a CLL specialist instead of a leukemia specialist.  He is the one who taught me CLL is not actually leukemia, despite the name.  He also told me, “Forget everything you think you know about CLL and stop doing your own research.”  He shared with me how much even doctors do not know about blood cancer.  At the time, I was overdosing on Ashwaganda (green tea extract), and my specialist, who apparently did research on Ashwaganda while working at the Mayo Clinic, told me that it does not in fact do much to CLL.  He prescribed ibrutinib to me, explaining that there is nothing radioactive in the drug.  I stood more of a chance of side-effects of radiation when I got a PET scan.  He explained to me that ibrutinib is a protein inhibitor, which, for lack of better layman’s terms, reminds my useless, immortal, unmutated (strangely enough) white blood cells that they are supposed to die instead of pile up in my lymphatic system.  I have since gone back to white, processed sugar and gained 40 pounds, much to my specialist’s dismay.  However, if this disease has a chance of stealing weight from me, I want to have some to spare.

                I learned the hard lesson that the Internet is a “newspaper”, not an “Encyclopedia” and that you truly cannot believe everything you read in the newspaper.  I am all for free speech, but if you want to be able to trust that free speech to be correct, make sure what you are reading is a “scientific journal” or written by a Ph. D.  Best of all, however, find a specialist with whom you’re comfortable and just do what they say.