“The Firm”

After Dr. Warner, the board-certified radiation oncologist in Washington state, lost his license to practice medicine for unconventional treatment of cancer patients, he provided consultation – as opposed to treatment – for people who continued to seek him out.

Someone I knew well had a family member suffering from cancer at the time, and treatment was not going well. I recommended a consult with Dr. Warner. The patient involved could not/would not forsake the sinking ship of chemotherapy and radiation that had become her life raft, until one day her doctors told her there was nothing more they could do. She had a few months to live they said; she should go home and get her affairs in order. At that point, with trepidation but no other options, she decided to try something new.

Over the next weeks, she gained strength and weight, felt better, spent time with her daughters, got out of the house, did things. By her report, she felt better than she had in the previous three years. Weeks stretched to months, months stretched to a year. One day, having already lived four times longer than her doctors had predicted, she took a turn for the worse. Fear gripped her, and she consulted her previous oncologists, who agreed to begin a course of aggressive "salvage" care. Her health rapidly deteriorated and her death was messy and painful. It is worthy of note that the doctors who filled her with toxic drugs and radiation until her body wall literally perforated from the inside out, knowing they could not affect a cure, retained their licenses to practice medicine. Dr. Warner, who helped her live an extra year, did not. Apparently, becoming part of the medical club – the fellowship of the AMA – is a little bit like joining The Firm (John Grisham). If you step out of line, beware.

For the rest of us, the stakes are even higher – it's our lives, our families' and friends' lives, and our beloved pets' lives. Until we demand honesty and real science, until profit is removed as a reason to pursue cures, until we face our fears of death head on, and until we demand real choices and real answers, we will remain locked in a paradigm that sentences the majority of cancer patients to expensive, painful, debilitating treatment, often followed by the death they and their doctors wanted to deny.

Me and Nicholai prefer long walks by the river, rain or shine. Yummy food and tummy rubs. Satisfied with gentle herbs and non-toxic vitamins, I don't plan to second guess what if we'd shot him full of drugs. Our road's been good. And when the time comes for him to leave his big 'ole furry, failing black body behind, I will cry my eyes out. But I'll rejoice for not having stolen each and every day between now and then, attempting to prevent the inevitable – the day his shiny black spirit takes off over the rainbow bridge.