CIMPA Conversations

Yesterday, at the chemo room, it hit me like a ton of bricks – Cancer is multicultural. It does not care what the color of your skin is, who you are or what you have done in life.

There was Sarah, born and raised in North Carolina. She moved here when her husband, an Army major, was moved to the Pentagon. She works as a TV producer.Leah was born in Taiwan, got married to a navy captain and has lived in Maryland for the past 5 years. She works for a non-profit organization. Sandra is from England but has living for 9 years with her husband, an air force officer, in Virginia. She stays at home to take care of 2 young children. Barbara is a black woman from Mississippi who moved to Washington DC when she divorced her husband of 11 years, an army sergeant. She is working for the DC government as a Program Director at the National Institute of Health. And there was me – married to an Army Colonel and has been living in Virginia for 26 years. I have been working as an independent consultant ever since I re-married and retired as Professor at Centro Escolar University and George Mason University.

The conversation was lively – centering around when we were diagnosed, the procedures we have undergone, the pain or lack thereof, medications and other snippets from our lives as cancer patients. It’s funny how easily we could talk to complete strangers about who we are on a very personal level, our deepest fears and hopes, our belief systems  and life experiences. Sarah talked about the horror and madness in Rwanda – seeing hundreds of people die around her while covering the holocaust. “I have looked death to the eye before”, she said, “but nothing can equal the fear I felt after the doctor told me “‘You have cancer”‘.

There was lively discussion of beliefs, folklores and practices related to health and medicine. Leah said, “In Palestinian tradition, if the bridegroom wears a clove of garlic in his buttonhole, he is assured a successful wedding night. Among practitioners of Auryvedic medicine, garlic is held in high regard as an aphrodisiac and for its ability to increase semen”. This drew chuckles from the group. Barbara added, “Egyptian slaves were given a daily ration of garlic, as it was believed to ward off illness and to increase strength and endurance”. To avoid diarrhea, a frequent side effect of chemotherapy, Sandra recommended boiling  young guava leaves and making it into tea.

There were no discussions of racism, multiculturalism or diversity We were just 5 women talking while hooked up to a machine dripping poison into our veins. Cancer does not care about who was black, white or brown or what you have done professionally. Neither did we.