Could we be wrong about cancer?
Monday, February 11, 2013
What Is Cancer?
By
Francis William Bessler
Laramie, Wyoming
2/11/2013
Debbie, you are the reason I am writing this blog. I will leave it at that. OK? Take it for what you will - and review my CLOSED TUNNEL THEORY OF CANCER in volume 1 of my writings of this website if you wish. I take the view that there is no such thing as a "bad body cell" anymore than there is any such thing as a "bad person." Bad people go wrong because of the circumstances in which they find themselves - not because of "something in them." I think it might be that way too with body cells. I think it may be the circumstances surrounding them that cause them to go awry - not becoming defective of themselves.
What is cancer? In my last blog, I asked "what is life?" In summary, I offered that I do not know what life is, but that I have confidence that whatever it is, it is right. Look! I do not have all the answers about what puzzles us human beings, but then I do not think anyone else does either. I do believe, however, that most traditional thinking would have me believe that life is somehow wrong - or has been made wrong by something mankind has done. To me, and for me, such thinking is absolutely ludicrous - to even suspect that something I may do can shift all of Nature into being something it was not before I did my horrid deed.
And yet, that is precisely the approach of most traditional religious thinking - that Nature was right in the beginning and then mankind was introduced into the picture and turned Nature itself upside down. It is thought and presented by many religious persons that all was right before mankind was created - and then mankind came into the picture and death resulted where it had not been before. Talk about ludicrous! And yet that idea has been followed by trillions and has not been suspected of being wrong by many of those trillions. I say "trillions" because I have no idea how many have lived and quite frankly, I don't care. All I know is that untold numbers of human beings still believe that Nature was right at one time and then - poof - it became wrong. Adam & Eve disobeyed God and sent complete chaos into the picture whereas before the disobedience of Adam and Eve, all was perfect.
That makes no sense to me - that mankind can alter perfection by something it might do - or not do. I think those who have it in their minds that they can somehow alter some general perfection and make it faulty just are not thinking right. In not thinking right, they live their lives as if they are right and completely miss the
Without realizing it, I think much so called "research" about life has taken that same approach. Something is wrong, but before it became wrong, it was right. Adam & Eve were made perfect, but then they did something and all about them became wrong. A human body cell was perfect, but then something happened and a perfect human body cell became a monster. We call that something "cancer." We have to call it something; and in this case, it is cancer.
What is cancer? I know very little about it but I have thought about it - for what it's worth - and it seems to me that the accepted almost completely believed idea about it is that a normal body cell becomes somewhat of a rebel and "decides" by all its lonely little self to multiply - when it otherwise would not. In brief, it seems this is the accepted explanation of cancer - that a normal body cell becomes defunct, as it were, and goes berserk. It is claimed that it goes berserk because its regulatory mechanism becomes defective. Well, they have to have some reason that a normal body cell would multiply when it should not. So why not blame it on something the cell does itself? That is completely consistent with mankind's general assumption that one person can alter a general scenario. Blame it on the cell itself.
Sorry! I do not see it! I do not see how a cell can become defective by itself and in its derangement, alter a complete system that was otherwise perfect before one cell decided to rebel and commit murder. I do not accept that kind of thinking. I think it is, in the word of one of my critics about how I think things really are - ludicrous.
Maybe my ideas about life being perfect are ludicrous; and maybe my idea about there being no such thing as a "cancer cell" is ludicrous too; but maybe not too. I throw out this idea about what I think cancer is as a matter of conjecture. I admit I know almost nothing about the human body - except in having a terrific confidence in it that it is right - and all about it is right. If something happens within the human body, it is probably not due to a good cell becoming a bad cell, but because something happens outside of the good cell to deter its normal course. That is my approach to life in general; and that is my approach to all within it.
It is claimed that a cancer cell is a normal body cell that multiplies erratically - and the result is often the generation of a tumor - or too many of one kind of body cell in a certain area. OK, I accept that. There are too many cells of a kind in an area; but I do not accept that it is likely because of the cell itself doing what it should not do. I think there must be another explanation.
So, what is "my explanation"? Consider this, if you wish. Picture in your mind a normal body cell only having so much nutrients - and that if restricted to that ample supply of nutrients, it does exactly as expected; but then something happens to supply that normal body cell with too much nutrients - or hormones - or whatever it is that is required for a normal body cell to thrive and do as it "should." What is likely to happen?
I would say that if I am given too much to eat that I might get fat. Well, consider the same thing for a "normal" body cell. If it is given too much to eat, it might "get fat" and, in the end, multiply because it got too fat for its own good - so to speak. And maybe this is that which is called "cancer" - not normal body cells becoming awry and rebelling from their normal purpose. I throw it out as "something to think about." OK? Think about it, if you wish, and decide for yourself if my explanation is plausible. I am not an expert and do not claim to be. I am only one "imperfect" perfect human being conjecturing about the state of things.
Let me digress. I lost a friend to cancer in the early '80s. He was my dentist and I did not even know he was sick - and then he was gone just like that. In my surprise at his sudden death, I decided to think about this thing called "cancer." My friend was an exercise nut and loved to jog in his jogging suit on the way to his office. I wondered if there was a connection - that maybe my friend was doing ill to himself while thinking he was doing right. What could that something be? Maybe his jogging in a "sweat suit" was somehow connected to his cancer. What could that be? I thought "overheating" the body.
On that "fast track" of thinking, I pondered the possibility of overheating the body as being the cause - or at least one cause - of cancer. Now, how could there be a connection? You see I was already on a different track in my personal conjecture. I was "too dumb" to think about something else causing the cancer. I was trying to connect overheating the body with the cancer - not knowing that traditional thought had already assumed a "defective body cell" as the culprit. In not knowing that cancer might be due to some defective body cells, I speculated it had something to do with simply overheating the body.
Then I did some research. In general, I found that a lot of cancer seems to relate to what is known as the lymphatic system of the body. Maybe not all of it - but much of it. So, I put myself to thinking about some connection of the lymphatic system to cancer. Could there be a connection there? If cancer has a lot do with the lymphatic system and somehow my friend overheated that lymphatic system, maybe in that there is an explanation of cancer - or at least some cancer.
Well, what does the lymphatic system do? I found that it is the drainage system of the body - so to speak. It is the system by which normal cellular waste is drained from various body organs via channels of fluids, but it stands to reason that normal body cells live and die in those fluids. It made sense to me that those fluids probably contain nutrients that the cells needs to survive - including hormones. In a normal situation, cells would eat what those fluids provide and maybe excrete what waste they could not use back into the fluids. The "lymphatic" fluids would then be drained by normal drainage processes and all would go as expected - and designed.
What would reasonably happen if that drainage process - and corresponding supply process to the cells in the fluids - was interrupted? Would not normal body cells eat too much, having all those damned up nutrients, and multiply when they would not normally multiply? Presto - cancer!
What, then, might cause the lymphatic system to become blocked? Since my starting point was "overheating the body," my mind went in that direction. Maybe overheating the body somehow causes a closure of the lymphatic system - perhaps by swelling the tissues surrounding the lymphatic tunnels. Maybe! And Maybe Not too!
That was 1982 that I did all this conjecturing. I wrote a paper about my ideas and sent it off to numerous cancer research centers around the country. I received almost no response, but a secretary in a
In subsequent years, I would fine tune my ideas about cancer and give names to the traditional explanation of cancer - calling it the "Defective Genetics" theory of cancer - and to my own theory calling it the "Closed Tunnel" theory of cancer. For what it's worth, you can find my most recent version of my thinking in a feature in the 1st volume of my OUT IN THE OPEN writings series - found in this website.
Am I right? Am I wrong? I would say that I am "probably" wrong about my ideas about cancer - and maybe because I was too eager to connect overheating the body with the cancer of my friend who died from it. I admit that; however I am now resurrecting my thoughts about cancer because another friend has it.
Sorry, Debbie, but maybe a little speculation on my part can ease the fear a little. If so, I am glad I can do it. Maybe now is the time to expose myself about the matter again. If my thinking is ludicrous, as many have told me it is, so be it. I have not minded being called ludicrous for much of my thinking about things in life - and this should be no exception. I admit I am "probably" wrong - having almost no knowledge about the intrinsics of the human body - but what if I am not wrong? What if all the experts are really wrong in having defined cancer incorrectly in the first place? It might be so, even though it "probably" is not.
If there is another explanation of cancer, however, including a complete redefinition of it, who is to say that, in time, we can't deal with it so much better than we have in the past - and are doing now? Let me leave it at that. OK?
But, Good Luck, Debbie - and all of you who have cancer! Maybe - just maybe - it is not the fearful thing we have come to believe it is!
Until next time, Adieu!
Your Bella Vita host,
Will Bessler
(Francis William Bessler)