Fighting Cancer

> There is also this commonly held notion that if you "live right"

One of humanity's greatest questions is "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

The inconvenient truth, of course, is that the universe is cold and uncaring, and random chance and statistics means that bad things will happen.

But we humans hate that answer. We crave structure, patterns, cause and effect, order. Why did flooding destroy a city? You must have angered the gods with your sinful ways! There we go. Cause and effect. Peace of mind. Rules have been created. The universe makes sense again.

Why do young people get cancer? They ate the wrong food! They didn't exercise enough! They didn't fight the cancer! They did this, they didn't that. Cause and effect. They broke the rules. And as long as I don't break the rules, bad things will not happen to me. I will never anger the gods, eat the wrong food, or forget to exercise, and those who do, they're immoral and deserve the bad things that happen to them!

And that is why this is a morality play.

> [1]: http://phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1162

So, forgive me if I'm being naive because I don't really have professional experience in the field of cancer research, but this comic makes it sound like a cure for cancer is impossible because it would have to deal with million different forms and shapes that it can take, but, theoretically, wouldn't it be possible to attack the root problem instead, and find a way to biologically enhance our dna replication "algorithm" to prevent mutations in the first place? Surely it's better to prevent the mutations in the first place than find a cure for them, since then it's a single problem.

Sure, I understand what you are saying. Those are actually significant findings, though. Keep in mind how good we are at keeping people with progressed heart disease alive. The relatively few years' reduction in lifespan masks, in my cases, early onset of heart disease and years of expensive emergency response, frequent hospitalization, transplants, reduced quality of life, and so on. Better is to look at large meta studies about bmi, smoking, diet, and physical activity as they affect rates of disease as well as mortality. I quickly searched and found many results.

Respectfully, I haven't said anything about living until a very old age. I am only talking about a few diseases and I understand there are a lot of ways to die. I have also said the morality of not trying to extend lifespan is subjective.

I think it is super important to answer yes to that question as a patient.

At the end of the day, it it your body. You are responsible for it. You may not be an expert in what all of it does in its majestic form and function, but that is why doctors, nurses, and researchers exist.

You live in it. When you are explaining stuff, be it pain or pleasure, to a doctor, that experience is mediated by the sheer fact that your doctor is not you and does not live in your body, does not receive sensory input from your body. Your doctor receives sensory input from his/her body.

Even if your doctor has extremely similar experiences, there is no guarantee that they will fully understand you and your predicaments. Most doctors in the US know what a severe sunburn looks like, and many will have had them growing up. Most also have not seen Phytophotodermatitis (aka lime disease http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/07/burned-by... ), nor will have had them growing up. With the growth of artsinal cocktails and people realizing fresh citrus juice tastes better, it's occurring more frequently. Now there is an educational push,but that doesn't equal expedient treatment and lots of doctors recognizing on sight yet before it gets bad.

While Phytophotodermatitis is a trivial example, for patients with serious diseases (and not serious but not common ones too) the example holds and can be expanded. Patients banding together to change this is generally what causes major changes in healthcare policy in the US president,as well as direction in research. (The most famous example is in the late 90s/early 00 with aids via act up nyc. The documentary "how to survive a plague" covers this extremely well")

So yes, you totally should question. You totally have more power than you think. Act on it.

> I saw people who asked a person who just experienced extreme difficult situations, "are you ok?". Apparently she was not ok. Her husband just passed away and they had two young children.

In American culture, this use of "Are you okay?" is not at all literal. It is a polite and well-understood way of opening a dialogue in which the other party can detail the problems stemming from the situation under discussion (implicit from the context of the question) with which they require either emotional support or more concrete assistance, without actually asking for assistance, and without the initiator overtly suggesting that the other party needs assistance in the first place. Its a means of offering support within the context of America's culture of maintaining the illusion of self-reliance. (OTOH, because of that culture of self-reliance, even this elliptical opening is expected to be declined in most cases with, in most cases, an "I'm okay" or, when that is so manifestly not the case as to be ludicrous, "I will be okay".)

The more direct forms which do overtly reference a perceived need for assistance ("Is there anything I can do to help?" or, even moreso, "What can I do to help?") are generally considered less polite and less acceptable, particularly in public and/or from more distant acquaintances.