Thierry Sagnier's Blog, page 5

Madame Sokolov and the Art of Eating Alone

When I was a kid in Paris, my parents would ask the one-floor-up neighbor at 3, rue de la Terrasse, to babysit me. These were rare occasions I always enjoyed. Madame Yelena Sokolov’s apartment was far more interesting than the one I lived in, and she always addressed me as Jeune (young) Monsieur Thierry.
I never learned her first name. She was the daughter of a White Russian refugee, and she claimed a direct if confusing link to Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, the last tsar of Russia.
She smelled of lavender and her white hair was always up in a tight bun. She had high cheekbones, thin and serious lips, an aquiline nose and piercing blue eyes. In her younger years she must have been stunning. My father occasionally flirted with her–or tried to. She was not particularly amenable, and, in retrospect, it is clear she thought my family was one step up from barefooted serfdom.
Mme. Sokolov fixed herself three complete meals each day and never ate leftovers. Sometimes, when I was in her apartment, she would set the table for one with two forks, two knives, three glasses and two linen napkins–one for the main course and one for dessert, which was usually sherbet in a silver cup. I was never invited to sit at her table. I had a special small chair and was given a tray to balance on my knees, which I did fearfully. She served me minute amounts of her own minute servings. I remember veal in a sweetly bitter sauce, fish so white it dazzled the eye, tiny potatoes no bigger than grapes, and only once a thin slice of bleeding meat that may have been Steak Tartar or perhaps a Russian version of Beef Carpaccio. Everything she cooked, she consumed. When she ate, it was with both hands on the table, holding a fork with the tines pointed downward, and a small, very sharp knife. Her back was straight, and if mine was not, she would mutter, “Votre dos, Jeune Monsieur Sagnier. Nous ne sommes pas des paysans.” Being called a peasant was the ultimate slur.
I remember thinking it must be very sad to always cook for oneself.
Now I do it two or three times a week, sometimes sadly, but mostly not. I seldom set the table, though I always sit, and think eating while standing is a crime against taste and worthy manners. My cooking repertoire is rather limited. I make a good Salade Niçoise and decent shepherd’s pie. My ratatouille is famous, my rice and beans acceptable. I often cook in large quantities and eat the same thing for a week or longer. I throw out too much food and feel guilty for it. I occasionally bake, more often grill, and on very rare occasions invite people to my home to dine.
I often think of Madame Sokolov’s lonely culinary exploits, and where I had seen aloneness, I now believe there existed a wonderful expression and reward of the self. Madame Sokolov never once evinced the slightest hint of melancholy. She was proud, kind in a fashion that no longer exists, self-contained, her manners impeccable. She had an elegance that brooked no nonsense and the ways of an exiled princess which, for all I know, is precisely what she was.
I have no idea what became of Madame Sokolov. Her name, it turns out, is among the most common in Russia. It is cited in a 1920’s book titled “The Last Days of the Romanovs.” Grigori Sokolov is a celebrated pianist. Alexander Sokolov was a champion arm-wrestler. Authors, painters, and several families in Minnesota also bear the name. I doubt her history will ever be known. But I think of her teaching manners to a small child of another culture, cooking alone in a minuscule kitchen, among the last of her class and bearing, a proud survivor of the Russian revolution. I hope she was celebrating herself.

Me and Margaret Mead

My first and only date with Margaret Mead was in September of 1974. I was working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and my boss confused Margaret Mead with Jane Goodall—both were women scientists—and since he didn’t like monkeys or apes, he suggested I cover the award Ms. Mead was scheduled to receive at the Canadian embassy from that country’s government. Even better, he said, I could be Ms. Mead’s escort, and she and I could talk about monkeys.
I had read her Coming of Age in Samoa and knew a little about her. She’d been married and divorced three times, had influenced the sexual mores of the 60s. She was a woman with opinions on women’s rights, drug abuse, race relations, world hunger, and environmental pollution. She was the go-to person for quotes on innumerable subjects, and often a guest on NPR.
I didn’t have a car at the time and for a moment considered picking her up from her hotel on my motorcycle, then reconsidered. She was already in her 70s, a tiny woman, I knew, whose feet might not reach the bike’s foot pegs. So instead, I called a cab, and we traveled the few blocks from the hotel to the Canadian Embassy, which at the time was on Massachusetts Avenue.
Margaret liked the attention she received, and was at the center of that evening’s action, easily eclipsing Jesse Owens, who was also receiving an award. In fact, Jesse seemed lost when I approached him, and we ended up having a brief discussion about athleticism in modern times. He was amazed by the number of track and field records that were falling. He seemed a truly humble man, not that comfortable with the fame he’d earned in the 1936 Olympics.
The ambassador’s wife introduced the two celebrants to each other, and they chatted for a moment. I had the distinct impression neither really knew who the other was.
After the awards were given—plaques, if I remember correctly—Margaret was taken in hand by a too-handsome white-haired man. She never looked back at me, and I did not have the opportunity to get a second date. This was good. She was really, really, tiny, and we didn’t have that much in common. Plus, I don’t like monkeys.

Fear, or the Lack Thereof

I’ve never been afraid of cancer. Both my parents had it; my mother and older sister died from it, as did my paternal grandfather. When my diagnosis came a decade ago, I wasn’t scared, I was—in a strange way—relieved. Now that it was iut in the open, I could begin to deal with it.
In time the illness made me feel dirty. I had a difficult time explaining that to friends, to a shrink, to members of support groups. As I went through biopsy after biopsy, some negative, others positive, as cancer solidified itself in my life, I grew to accept it, resent it, be ashamed of it. It made me feel physically unattractive, as if I wore it like soiled trousers. I got angry at the pain it caused, at the embarrassment of having to flee to a restroom after a bout of chemo and, on at least one occasion, not making it in time. I dreaded the biopsies because each required two or three weeks of painful recovery time and, somehow of deeper concern, each called for total anesthesia. I was and remain persuaded the body is not designed to be put to sleep with chemicals, that this practice causes long-term harm and may damage the brain.
I wrote about it often. For a while, doing so made me feel better, more whole and less troubled. I could even write with a degree of objectivity that has long since departed. Now, I hardly write at all, about cancer and other afflictions with which I share life. It hardly seems worth the effort, and I believe the readers who follow this blog would prefer to be offered lighter fare, sort of like the Facebook inundation of cute puppies and winsome kittens.
I was fortunate to have friends who drove me to and from the procedures and, before COVID, listened as the surgeon told them of possible side-effects. On more than one occasion, I was driven and picked up by my life-long friend Paul, and I am persuaded the medical staff believed us to be an old gay couple. They were kind and compassionate, telling Paul that I might be constipated for a time and that my libido might suffer. Paul nodded soberly: Yes, of course, he understood… I could see his chest shaking in repressed laughter—a rare moment of levity in the post-op room.
Right now, the battle is to get my kidneys to behave. The immunotherapy I did for more than a year has apparently damaged them, and they’re shooting out creatinine at an elevated level. I have to deink three liters of water a day, and as a result visit the men’s room hourly. It’s ok, I can do that.
Facebook, ever watchful, is now running riot with ads for highly absorbent men’s underwear. It’s so nice to know someone cares…

No. 29

Yesterday I underwent biopsy number 29. I was dreading it. Covid interrupted my normal schedule of cystoscopies and I sensed something major was wrong. Luckily, sometimes feelings aren’t facts. A friend dropped me off at the Kaiser Permanente center at 7:30 a.m. and within minutes I was struggling with the butt-displaying medical robe that’s always missing at least one tying lace. There was a minor struggle not to expose more body parts as I bent over to put on the little tan operation socks, but by the time the first anesthesiologist arrived, I was properly attired and relatively covered.

Every time I go through one of these, I have to explain to the anesthesiologist that even though I have been in recovery more than three decades, my body still processes drugs like that of an active addict. On two occasions, I was not dosed properly and woke up during surgery, truly unwelcome experiences.

For some reason, there are always two anesthesiologists that come at different times and ask the same questions. As a matter of fact, pre-surgery, the same general questions are asked by administrators, nurses, nursing assistants, and doctors. I suspect this is a safeguard against cutting the wrong part or organ off the wrong patient.

I was in the operating room by 9:30, anesthetized by 9:40, and sentient again by 11:30 a.m. A friend picked me up after getting my prescriptions, and I was home by 1 p.m.

The narcotic painkiller left me feeling woozy. I drank and peed continually, with (this may be too much information) my urine a lovely cotton-candy pink. It hurt, which I expected.

I didn’t eat, as I remember once gorging after an operation and being seriously ill. The wooziness subsided somewhat by evening, though I found my balance had been affected. I binge-watched The West Wing. I didn’t sleep particularly well. Not much of a surprise since I was lying down most of the day…

I won’t know the results of the procedure until tomorrow when I see my doctor. I am certain that he, being a urologist/oncologist surgeon, will again suggest we simply lop off my troublesome bladder and a few nearby organs, as this is the Standard Operating Procedure for this type of decade-long cancer. The ‘cure’ would imply wearing a urostomy bag, and the best-case scenario, I’ve been told, is a recovery period lasting a year. At this point, this is not something I want to undergo; quality of life is important, and 12 or more months of severe discomfort is beyond my tolerance. I have already gone through chemo and immunotherapy, and there may be some additional non-invasive treatments available.

I’ve always imagined my cancer cells to be like the bad guys who wear black cowboy hats and are pursued by white hat posse cells. The visualization makes the procedures easier to live with.

Unfortunately, I’m close to sure this is not the last biopsy. But then again, 30 is such a nice round number.

Inheritance

Many years ago, my father was operated upon for colon cancer. Back then, in the ‘70s, this was serious stuff and people were known to succumb on the operating table. After the procedure, the attending surgeon approached my mother who was in the waiting room surrounded by friends and told her the operation had been a complete success. The surgery had excised all traces of cancer, and my father would make a full recovery. My mother exploded in tears. “But it could still spread,” she wailed. “What about metastasis!”
That was Maman, my mother, a born catastrophizer who could see the blacker side of any rosy scenario. Clouds did not have silver linings; any iota of hope was overshadowed by despair. A common cold was precursor to fatal pneumonia; any plane she boarded would crash.
Maman was spectacularly talented. She was an insomniac who entertained brilliantly and compulsively. She wrote, and contributed to the creation of the Babar series, played the piano and the accordion, painted (her works were displayed in galleries in Paris and in Washington), and was a gifted seamstress who hoped to rival Coco Chanel and her little black dress. Her various careers were cursed by her belief that only great and total success mattered, and that if this was beyond her grasp, then she had failed. Small successes were failures. There were no greys in her life, only blacks and whites.
The demands of motherhood and the rigors of creativity did not coexist well. When my mother was painting, she brooked no distractions. I was her model once or twice, a small boy standing perfectly still for hours, a demanding task for a seven-year-old. To better deal with the challenges, Maman abused drugs before it was called abuse. I believe she had discovered the benefits of various substances during the war, when she was a Free French stationed in Algeria. She smoked, though she claimed not to inhale, and drank, though in all honesty I can’t remember her ever being drunk. But she was familiar with hashish and the various stimulants American officers distributed freely to their pilots, so they’d stay alert during long reconnaissance flights. After the war, she discovered the downers and uppers that in later decades would become so popular. That she managed to lead a normal life is still a wonder to me.
I have inherited from her a watered-down version of her fatalism. I am almost certain any endeavor I undertake will end in calamity. If I walk into a room and forget why I did so, it’s Alzheimer’s. When I drive to someplace new, I will get lost before reaching my destination if, that is, my car doesn’t break down.
Added to this across-the-board pessimism is the knowledge that (1) every picayune mistake I make during the day rewards me with a small voice uttering, “Stupid. Idiot. Moron.” Or worse. And (2) whatever I attempt will first go wrong and then, with luck, succeed but probably only partially. In other words, I am supposed to expect failure, before success decides to raise it tiny head.
Conversations with friends lead me to believe I am not the only one so afflicted. We all inherit traits both good and bad from our parents, and these often guide our lives.
I got her drug and alcohol dependencies, and, I like to think, some of her creativity. I inherited her discontent with small successes, and her predilection for depression. I started stealing her Pall Mall cigarettes when I was twelve and quit just short of my 50s. I stopped drugs and alcohol 31 years ago and have never regretted it, though there are times when I wonder if being in the thrall of dependence might not have served my own imagination and creativity. Probably not.
Oddly enough, Maman died on my first sober anniversary. I had flown to Paris at my sister’s behest when she told me Maman was fading fast. I got there hours after her passing, and, seeing her on her deathbed, it was difficult to imagine this tiny woman had held such sway over my life.
I own several of her paintings, a single copy of the book she wrote, and a draft of another book she never finished writing. I’ve read it, and it is as good as anything I’ve written. I never had the opportunity to tell her this, which I regret. Perhaps she would have seen this as a success.

On Aging

This is what I have discovered regarding aging: It’s all about things being taken away, all about loss. There is the loss of friends who die, move away, get ill, or simply become harder and harder to reach. When a friend dies, half the memories shared die with them. You will never again be able to laugh together remembering the weekend you both got lost in Rock Creek Park. The friend’s half the story is gone forever, and this is perhaps the most profound loss of all. Other losses affect your physical inner and outer self. Hearing becomes more difficult; sight grows blurry, and your entire system changes, sometimes slowly, sometimes not.
In my last decade, there has been (and still is) cancer and the various treatments and tests to see if the illness is waning or growing. There have been minor ills as well: Bell’s Palsy, sciatica, and diverticulosis. The latter is not treatable; it is a structural change in the digestive system. One adjusts one’s diet to lessen the discomfort. For me, this means no more meat, processed products, or fried food, and a new wariness about what I ingest. Will the rotisserie chicken create discomfort 24 hours later, or will it pass unhindered through my system? I eat fish, a lot of fish—salmon, tuna, tilapia—but no shrimp or crabcakes. Clam chowders are out too… Sushi, luckily, is still edible.
Then there is patience. I’m glad to report I no longer befriend or tolerate idiots. I’ve unfriended the Trumpites and ceased arguing with those whose information comes from daily input of Fox News. I’m unwilling to tolerate louts yelling into their phone while I eat lunch at a restaurant, or children whose parents resolutely ignore screams, tears, and tantrums. I’m a lot more patient in traffic, though, save for the morons jabbering on their phones as the light turns green. I have not assaulted the upstairs neighbor who in the middle of the night paces his apartment like an inebriated elephant.
Some losses are better than others. I stopped drinking and recreational drugs more than 31 years ago. I no longer smoke my beloved filterless Kools. I’ve recently abandoned coffee, a six-espresso-a-day habit that gave me great pleasure. These have been replaced by a myriad of drugs to deal with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol, cancer, and degradation of the optic nerve. I drink caffeine-free tea, a pale source of joy, and eat fat-free yogurt. I’ve discovered smoothies, buy fruit twice a week, and purchased a blender that, when running, smells faintly of an impending short-circuit.
I can no longer drive at night as my left eye is almost blind, the result of a failed cataract removal. This in turn limits social interactions. I am losing hair, gaining dandruff, and observed an increase in earwax.
I’ve noted the disappearance of passions. Up until recently, there always was an all-embracing enthusiasm taking up my spare time—martial arts, inline skating, writing, and composing, playing with a band, a woman, relationships, writers’ groups, cars and motorcycles… All these appetites have waned, if not disappeared.
I love my solitude, but in recent times it has often segued into loneliness. I live by myself and find that household chores are good for an hour a day at most, which leaves 23 more hours to fill. Medical appointments come almost daily—tests of all kinds, immunotherapy, meetings with nurses and a variety of oncologists, GPs, and technicians to man the various scanners. I sleep a lot, but there are still too many empty house.
I’ve concluded that we live too long. I have just passed my sell-by date and the future is not all that appealing. During my last visit with my dentist, I was told that caps and crowns are only good for two decades. I spent almost twenty grand the first time around at the turn of the millennium, and I now need replacements.
In 1920, the life expectancy of a white male in the US was 53.5 years, and that of a white female was 54.6. It is now 76 years for men and 81 years for women. Neither society nor individuals have adjusted well to this increase, proving the inappropriateness of the Vulcan salute, Live Long and Prosper. Few of us do, and few of us will.

Ukraine Part 2

My second trip to Ukraine started badly. There was a snowstorm piling inches on Ukrainian roads and tarmac. Our plane from Istanbul swooped down for a landing, decided it was unsafe, and rose again. It did that twice more before finally depositing passengers, wan and shaken, at Boryspil International Airport.
The airport, now closed to civilian flights because of the war, is some 29 kilometers outside of Kyiv. It is old and reminded of Washington’s Reagan National back when it was simply National. It houses a single restaurant, no giftshop, and peeling linoleum floors.
I found a cab and we headed for Kyiv.
I speak no Ukrainian or Russian, and the driver was monolingual. After a half-hour on back roads, I began to fear he was going to murder me for my luggage. drop me in a ditch and leave my frozen corpse behind. We were in farm country with not a city in sight. We passed three cars, and the roads were slick. I prayed to the Toyota god for safety and the god listened. The driver was avoiding the larger roads because Ukrainian drivers are just as bad in the snow as East Coasters. As we eventually neared the city, I saw dozens of cars either abandoned or stuck in the snow. My driver crawled through them as if doing a particularly slow Paris-Dakar rally, and almost an hour after leaving the airport, he deposited me at the front door of the Friend’s apartment where I was staying. Soon thereafter, the snow stopped. I saw no snowplows anywhere, and walking was treacherous as the sidewalks weren’t cleared.
Kyiv is charming, and the thought of neighborhoods reduced to rubble is painful. Like Paris, but much larger, it is a walking city. There’s an erratic subway system where people today shelter from the Russian bombardments. Parks are lined with old tires half-buried and painted yellow, and in normal times, coffee vendors in kiosks and carts produce gallons of excellent espresso, ice cream, and other delectable. In stores, you find vegetables and legumes that were grown largely without fertilizer and are normal-sized. The bakeries boast dozens of fresh breads, and in the deli section, you’ll see a variety of meats not to be found anywhere else. There’s an enormous selection of drinking water, as the water in Kyiv is hardly potable. Miller Light beer is highly prized and expensive, and one entire market aisle was devoted to vodka. Security guards were posted at each end and gave shoppers the stink eye.
The Dnieper River which bisects Kyiv is lined with excellent restaurants and in the evening the walkway there is thronged. Street musicians—guitarists, flautists, accordion players, and trios of singers dressed in traditional garb, ply their trades. Most of the restaurants are closed now, and I understand the walkway is off-limits.
This year, spring in Ukraine is unlikely to be a joyous time, but I’m increasingly confidant Putin has over-reached. The West, by imposing its sanctions, is hurting Russian civilians, though the oligarchy is unlikely to suffer the deprivations. Both constituencies need to realize their leader is driving their nation to ruin. When they do, we’ll see an end to Putin’s dictatorship and to the unpopular war he is waging.
SIDE NOTE—There’s humor and then there’s humor. I’m personally delighted and amused that Putin, who had a heavy hand in the last two US presidential elections, is now accusing Washington of planning his overthrow. Is this what is meant by ‘chickens coming home to roost’?

Ukraine

Four years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Ukraine on two separate occasions. I found a country teetering on the edge of modernity, with malls that rivaled those found in the States, and every conceivable store from Apple to Benetton. The women were gorgeous, the men handsome, but what really stunned me was their knowledge of the English language. Time after time, I met young people who were totally fluent, even though they had never left their native land. I remember going to a store that specialized in high-end guitars and speaking with a twenty-year-old about the benefits and shortcomings of Fenders versus Gibsons. On a train returning to Kyiv from Lviv, a young woman asked me about life in America and was it true that everyone could afford a home? Like many Ukrainians, she was a fan of the English-language Home and Garden television channel. I got the impression that a lot of Ukrainians thought everyone in America was movie-star pretty, youthful, and rich.
During my first trip, I was fascinated by the architecture. Many apartments were nothing more than brutalist Soviet cubes made of grey cement blocks. Other buildings, both in Kyiv and Lviv had splendid exteriors, some baroque, some Renaissance, and it was only when you stepped inside that you realized these were only facades. There was no carpeting in the hallways, and often a sole elevator serviced an entire building. Such contrasts were abundant in the streets that were lined with modern stores, even as elderly women in from the countryside squatted behind baskets of apples or potatoes, hoping to take home a few hryvnia. There’s an open market in Kyiv that spreads over several city blocks and sells nothing but books, and a few kilometers away, a statue honors librarians, and sellers with a box or two of used books and magazines gather at its base.
Men and women walked the parks at midnight unafraid of being mugged. Another oddity was the lack of police in the streets. After five days in Kyiv, I saw only two police officers. Neither of them was a Nazi. Maybe Putin thought all those lean sharp-eyed men in the mall and bigger stores were Nazis, but he was wrong. These black clad security people are everywhere and particularly noticeable in the liquor aisle of the grocery stores.
My second time there, I went to Odessa, a depressing seaside town, just as the Russian navy boarded and captured two Ukrainian vessels with civilian crews. The Ukrainians declared martial law and the streets of Kyiv suddenly blossomed with very young Ukrainian soldiers totting machine guns and looking, frankly, a little trigger happy.
In a recent census, 73% of the country’s population identified as Ukrainian and 22% identified as Russian. I got the very distinct impression that Ukraine bore an intense dislike for Russia, with good reasons. In 2014, following the Revolution of Dignity, Russian forces annexed the Crimean Peninsula and sent soldiers and weapons to Eastern Ukraine, claiming many Ukrainians wanted to be part of Russia. In the simplest terms, what is happening today is a prolongation of what happened eight years ago.
A month ago, I would have bet against the Russian starting an offensive against Ukraine. Obviously, I was wrong. I think it’s very likely that Putin will declare victory soon, but it will be Pyrrhic at best. Ukrainians are a feisty lot not above prolonging the conflict as long as need be to oust the invaders.
I have no doubts that the Russians will try every dirty trick in their war book, and I fear for the worst. I also have great faith in the Ukrainian people.
In Lviv, the local brewery switched from making beer to making Molotov cocktails, and I read recently that the armored vehicles presently on display at the famed Museum of the Great Patriotic war are being reconditioned for combat.

It Shouldn't Have Been Me!

It’s ridiculous that I have cancer. Cancer is supposed to happen to other people, older than me and preferably not that close. If I learn someone I don’t know well has cancer, I say, “Oh, that’s terrible!” I ask what sort of cancer but I don’t get overly involved in their disease. I might bring up the person’s situation if the subject of cancer arises, but I keep my distance. Are they undergoing chemo, or getting surgery? Sorry. I don’t know.
If, heaven forbid, it’s someone close, or family, my reaction might be more caring. I will offer to help; I’ll drive them to and from their doctors’ and wait in the car for them; I’ll bring food, and sit by their bedside. But when it’s me, well, frankly, I don’t know how to react.
I was diagnosed in February 2012, and there was nothing outwardly that would indicate I was the one out of two males in America to get cancer. I thought it should have been the other guy, not me, and over time, I developed an “it is what it is” attitude. I told a few friends and acquaintances, mostly people who were in 12-step programs like me.
I cried a little. The disease was painful only when I had to have biopsies. Those hurt. Peeing after a procedure was nasty, and wearing a catheter was even nastier. I remember peeing my pants once, when trying to hold it became impossible. That ended a nascent relationship with a young woman who really wanted to help, but not if it involved bodily fluids and plastic bags full of urine.
I learned cancer jokes. There are hundreds of them and only people with cancer can tell them. I memorized the location of public bathrooms (shades of George Constanza) in the District and two adjoining counties. I learned to forget that I had the Big C, and respond to question with, “Yeah, well, you know, it could be worse.” One idiot asked me what sort of cancer I’d prefer to have and I said, “Ovarian.”
Increasingly, there’s little to say, and that’s because almost everyone I know, knows. I’ve undergone 27 invasive biopsies and the 28th is around the corner. I know what to expect. I even know many of the nurses who’ll be on the floor. I am on my seventh oncologist and am comfortable not agreeing with his suggestion that my bladder should be removed.
I’ve lived alone for the better part of my life and know exactly what provisions I should buy to surf through the next surgery. I have mastered surviving—so far—what cancer has lobbed at me. I’ve had excellent care through the surgeries, chemotherapy and, more recently, immunotherapy.
Still, it really should have happened to someone else. There are fewer than 200,000 people diagnosed yearly in the U.S., so that leaves a lot of people who are not me who could have gotten it.
But yeah, it is what it is and it could be worse. A lot worse.

The War on Cancer is 50 Years Old

A recent article in the AARP Bulletin on the effectiveness of the war against cancer was more informative than most articles I’ve read.
The war is now 50 years old and has cost over a billion dollars. Cancer is far from vanquished, but the statistics are encouraging, particularly for those among us who have been dealing with the disease for some time.
The article states, “Since 1971, the cancer death rate is down more than 25 percent. Between 1975 and 2016, the five-year survival rate has increased 36 percent, from 40% to 63% for Black Americans and from 49% to 67% for the U.S. population as a whole. Up-to-the-current-year stats are not available, and we must rely on numbers dating from 1970 to 2016.
Briefly, the five-year survival rates of the following cancers have improved drastically in the almost-half-century.
Prostate cancer survival, 98% from 66.3%; leukemia, 67.2% from 33.4%; melanoma, 95.8% from 81.9%; breast cancer, 91.8% from 75.3%; bladder cancer, 78.8% from 71.9%; Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, 75.8% from 47%.
Faring somewhat less well are lung cancer, 22.1% from 11.5%; brain and other nervous system cancer, 35.8% from 23%, colorectal cancer, 66.3% from 48.9%; and pancreatic cancer, 12.1% from 3.1%
Uterine cancer’s five-year survival rates have actually fallen from 88% to 82.5%, perhaps because this particular cancer receives the least research funding.
Cancer remains the top killer of Hispanics, Asian Americans, women in their 50s, and everyone aged 60 to 80. One in two men will get some form of invasive cancer, as will one in three women.
Treatments have changed as well. Back in the 70s, there were only eight cancer drugs available. By 2021, there were 641. The downside of this statistic is that the cost of drugs in 1971 was $134 a month. In 2021, the monthly cost was $14,580. You should be aware that not every new treatment has proven effective. According to studies, only 10 of the 93 drugs fast-tracked through the USFDA actually extended life.
“Ten years ago, chemotherapy was the only treatment for advanced cancer,” says Ravi Parikh, MD, in the article. “Now… immunotherapies harness he immune system to fight cancer.” They are not cures per se, but they stall cancer’s growth and can turn a killer cancer into a disease treated with a daily pill.
Some advances have been facilitated by smoking rates, which have fallen to 63 percent, even as the obesity rate in America has climbed. Obesity is now thought to increase the risk of contracting 13 types of cancers, and be responsible for at least 40 percent of the cancer in this country. This can be alleviated by eating more produce, grain, and beans, while avoiding red and processed meat, sugary drinks, junk food, and alcohol.
Meanwhile, cancer avoidance strategies are thriving. More and more people are opting for regular mammograms, colonoscopies, Pap smears and prostate cancer checks. In the near future, we can look forward to a single blood test identifying floating traces of protein and DNA from a wide range of cancers.
There’s a lot more information in the Bulletin article, and it’s worth a detailed reading. Cancer is not always preventable, but increased research and daily discoveries make the disease a less fearsome enemy than ever before.
Contact AARP at www.AARP.org