Cancer is a growth hormone for empathy, and empathy makes us useful to each other in ways we were not, could not have been, before.
Interpretation
Cancer can enhance our capacity for empathy, enabling us to support one another more effectively than before.
In this quote, Kelly Corrigan suggests that the experience of dealing with cancer can foster a deeper sense of empathy among individuals. This newfound empathy not only helps those suffering from cancer feel less isolated but also cultivates stronger connections and support networks that were previously absent, illustrating the transformative power of shared suffering and compassion.
In practice
During a speech at a cancer awareness event.
We'll bury our mothers and fathers - shuttling our children off for sleepovers, jumping on red-eyes, telling eachother stories that hurt to hear, about gasping, agonal breaths, hospice nurses, scars and bruises and scabs, and how skin papers shortly after a person passes. We will nod in agreement that it is as much an honor to witness a person leave this world as it is to watch a person come into it.
We are an overfed and undernourished nation digging an early grave with our teeth.
If you take a reasonable amount of vitamin C regularly, the incidence of the common cold goes down. If you get a cold and start immediately, as soon as you start sneezing and sniffling, the cold just doesn't get going.
Health care historically has been a very siloed field that's organized around medical specialties - urology, cardiac surgery, and so forth - and around the supply of these specialty services. The patient is the ping-pong ball that moves from service to service.
That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.
Sugar is the next tobacco, without a doubt, and that industry should be scared. It should be taxed just like tobacco and anything else that can, frankly, destroy lives.
We need to make sure that access to a curative drug doesn't become a yardstick by which poverty is eventually measured. Doing so requires a shared commitment between innovators and the insurance plans that are harder pressed to offer these advances to the poor.
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