Dear God, I pray for the cure of cancer.

© Jacquelyn Johnston, M.Ed. Diabesity Coach

Do you receive requests to pass on this kind of e-mail to 10 people, following which all manner of good things will be showered on you? I get quite a few. Today, I got one with the picture of a burning candle.

You may have seen the one with the woman walking from the left to the right of the screen, with a pink ribbon in the corner. Or the one with a pink T-shirt and a pink ribbon in the middle of the page.

Run for the cure, walk for the cure, Cops for Cancer and others. Now, especially, since Dr.Wayne Dyer was diagnosed with lymphoma, I’m getting quite a few of them both personally and on my Facebook page.

It’s always good when people reach out to people who have had such a diagnosis. Or when people just reach out. I’m all for outreach.

That being said, I had a few thoughts this morning. Some of these activities do raise a lot of money, but to what end, I ask myself. If the aim is to raise money for the existing Cancer-related model, I’m not sure I see the point. You raise the money, you give it to existing agencies which have been working to zap cancers with powerful drugs, subsidizing a model that hasn’t worked for a century.

Now, the people who do these activities are fabulous. The cops, for instance. They get on their bikes and do a circuit like the Tour de France, only it’s a Tour de Vancouver. It’s a little shorter and stunningly scenic, and they raise the moolah. Cheerfully, enthusiastically, garnering considerable support along the way.

The women who do the 60-kilometre walk camp overnight at various checkpoints. They have a rollicking good time chatting, and huddling in tents with hot chocolate. That’s a lot of effort in support of a failed model.

What if we added one word to these activities: how does Run for Cancer Prevention, Walk for Cancer Prevention, Cops for Cancer Prevention, Wear pink for Cancer Prevention sound to you?

What if we had Whole Foods Only Day, Zero Processed Food Day, Eat your fresh greens Day, Drink Micro-clustered Water Day, and the like. What if all those runners doing fund-raisers were to channel their energies into the activities that we know contribute to cancer prevention and cancer treatment? Or diabetes prevention?

Take Richmond’s own Mary Gazetas, for example. This dynamo of a community giver (and what a giver!) has organized many terrific projects here in Richmond, including a Fruit Tree Sharing Project. This is an amazingly thoughtful venture where produce is grown and distributed fresh to the Food Bank. (Alas, we have one in Richmond too).

Strikes me if more people ate this way there would be a lot less cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart and kidney disease, liver and lung disease, arthritis and skin conditions…you get my drift?

The papers are still full of the H1N1 non-event.

Could it be we’re really supposed to spend more time on what’s really endemic? On remedies that have worked for thousands of years? On what doesn’t have savage side-effects? What benefit is there to a system that essentially makes every discomfort a disease that has a matching pharmaceutical?

Join me. I’m going out to walk for prevention. What do you think?

Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn
Jacquelyn Johnston M.Ed.
Professional Health Coach and Educator,
Solutions and Support for Optimal Health
Richmond, B.C. Canada