Frustration.
Perry's end of school assembly today featured a pie in the face for someone as part of a fund raiser for his classmate with cancer. I won't even get into the juvenileness of hitting someone in the face with a pie or the role modeling when we are spending so much time and energy teaching Perry not to hit. We'll just move right on to the cancer part.
It's always scary to say stuff about cancer because 1) I don't want to give myself a kunahura (bounce back bad karma) 2) these parents have enough to deal with right now and you can't change the past.
But. DAMN IT! This kid is going to die. He's come out of remission twice and is now entering the experimental trials. Perry had some questions so we went to his web page and the back story included the bit where he was such a happy baby who loved his bottles. No we can't change the past but we can stop feeding every damn child in America carcinogenic crap and smiling and pretending its not harmful. I get it, kids who are exclusively breastfed get cancer too but LESS OFTEN! This child's parents found out he had cancer when they took him in for yet another x-ray at the hospital to check out how bad the constipation that's plagued him his entire life was. HELLO!!! Earth to pediatrician, constipation isn't normal, isn't healthy and you as his doctor need to mark a diagnosis and a treatment plan. HINT - it doesn't involve rice cereal and other fiberless low nutrient foods.
It's hard being surrounded by so many people fighting so hard to help pediatric cancer patients and to fund cures but when do we "Stop marching for a cure and start marching for prevention"!?! I just want to scream at those who've lost a child, get out there use your time, your rage, your money to stand outside the maternity wards and talk to pregnant women. Convince them their child's life could depend on breast feeding and real food free of rancid fats and carcinogenic nitrates! And go after the doctors. Use your rage, demand doctors be educated in the dangers of formula make their patients successful breastfeeding rates public. Make sure they know harmful phrases like, "Wouldn't it be easier to give up?" will see them hauled before the ethics board. Children's lives are riding on it!