Cancer Post

Today is the fourth anniversary of The Wife's hysterectomy: as many of you know, in 2003 she was diagnosed with early stage cervical cancer. Fortunately for her, she was diagnosed early, as hers was very fast growing, which is an anomoly for cervical cancer, which typically is very slow growing and can be monitored over the course of years.

Anyway, four years ago today she was lying in a hospital bed and today she ran 5 miles from the Miwok trail to Tennessee Valley, which is a *very* tough run. Congrats Wife, I am very proud of you and look how far you have come.

She wanted me to link to an article in this month's Vogue on the relatively new HPV vaccine for cervical cancer, but unfortunately, the article in not yet online.

As many of you are aware, HPV is the virus that causes about 70% of cervical cancers, and in what was touted as a major medical breakthrough, a highly effective vaccine was introduced to the marketplace about two years ago.

However, as is generally the case when politicians get involved, the HPV vaccine has become mildly controversial. Many politicians do not support it, because they think it is an implicit endorsement of premarital sex; they argue that it sends the wrong message to teen girls. They believe that instead of promoting vaccines, we should be promoting abstinence.

I argue: let their freaking daughters get cervical cancer (god forbid) and then let's see how they feel about the vaccine.

I am relatively apolitical (though I follow politics keenly, I am somewhat dispassionate) but sometimes I truly feel that we live in the stone age. How a politician could possibly not endorse a potentially life-saving vaccine singularly because of politics is totally and completely beyond my comprehension.

Anyway, that's my cancer diatribe for the day.

Happy Cancer Free anniversary, Wife!