The Nature of Disease

My disease is cancer, specifically multiple myeloma. Since I’m in the middle of treatment, I tend to think about the nature of “disease.”

Scientists tell us that we all have cancer cells within us. What makes them go crazy in some of us or morph into specific kinds of cancer is often a mystery. We just know it happens. Circumstances may contribute to their explosion, like cigarette smoke or radiation, but other people may have the same set of circumstances and are unaffected.

And, as my husband often says, life is a fatal disease. One thing is true – we will all die of something. Mine just happens to have a name.

I can’t help but relate spiritually. We all carry the ability to do evil within us. It’s part of our humanity, our “less-than-god-ness,” our mortality. For the most part, we keep it in check, disciplining ourselves to not commit murder, even if we are angry. But sometimes it does explode, doing damage to ourselves and others.

Just like cancer, evil/sin can be growing inside and we don’t even realize it. What has been deadly about MM is that you didn’t have symptoms until it was too late. Even then, they were common life symptoms like fatigue that everyone else has, so comparing yourself to others didn’t help. People often died within weeks of diagnosis. Doctors have found genes and conditions that might develop into MM that heighten monitoring but not prevention.

In the same way, bitterness and disappointment can grow subconsciously until an ugly side comes out. By then, cancerous habits and relationships can ruin families, children and lives. Decisions are made for self-survival rather than the benefit of others.

And unless there is some intervention treatment, there is no hope. No amount of perfect diet or discipline exists to prevent cancer. Even if we can keep outward symptoms in check, inward tumors like bitterness or lust grow. While we try to be better, we become more aware of how we fail.

I’m glad that for my cancer there is an intervention treatment. Chemo/transplant will not totally rid me of the disease — it will come back. But for the moment, I am given a reprieve.

For those who follow my blog, you know I am a follower of Jesus. He is the only intervention treatment I know for sin. It will never be irradiated in this life just as my body will never be cancerless.  As hard as I might try to stop it, it grows as a part of my mortality.  Only the substitutional death of Jesus is the cure in a life that is to come.