AN UPDATE ON CANCER
 SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS
 SERVICE

 Date: Sunday, January 31, 1999

 Section: Source: By LINDA SEEBACH

 Scripps Howard News Service

 Memo: Sunday, Jan 31

 Column
 (Linda Seebach is an editorial writer for the Denver
 Rocky Mountain News. E-mail
 seebach(at)denver-rmn.com)

 Edition: 

 Back in November, when I had surgery for uterine
 cancer, some readers asked that I let them know how
 things turned out.

 The surgery itself went extremely well. My job seldom
 requires lifting anything heavier than a few sheets of fax
 paper, so I was able to come back to work in less than a
 week.

 The pathologist's report was not equally sunny, however;
 the cancer had spread into the cervix. For those of you
 who have had to learn this grim taxonomy, that made it
 Stage IIB. My doctors at Kaiser recommended radiation,
 in case the cancer had also spread someplace else they
 didn't know about.

 So I've done that - six weeks of external-beam
 treatments, a few minutes each weekday morning before
 work, and an overnight in the hospital last week.

 That also went well, and I continue to feel fine. If there
 was no cancer remaining - or if there was and we killed it
 - I'll know only because nothing whatsoever will happen
 from now on.

 Journalists cherish the sardonic joke about the nosy
 reporter who asked, "Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how
 did you enjoy the play?" Apart from being in this
 situation at all, I think I've been very fortunate, and
 especially so to live in a time and place that offers a
 reasonable hope, if no guarantee, of cure.

 Many kind people called or wrote to wish me well, and I
 thank them all.

 But among the messages there were some I found
 troubling.

 One woman left a message, while I was in the hospital
 for surgery, urging me to visit an acupuncturist "who has
 a degree in Oriental medicine."

 I've since talked to her, and she's very offended that I
 have expressed so low an opinion of the treatments and
 practitioners she prefers. But I'd as soon visit a witch
 doctor as an acupuncturist - for any ailment, let alone
 cancer.

 Another kind gentleman sent me a packet summarizing a
 long list of cancer cures, many with ordering instructions.
 One attributes all cancer to a parasite (fluke) that usually
 lives in the intestine but causes serious disease when it
 moves to other organs. A week's dosage of three herbs
 eliminates the parasite.

 Another moving testimonial comes from a woman who
 refused chemotherapy and instead sent $5 for a
 handbook telling the secrets of a Canadian healer who
 possessed "an old Indian cancer remedy."

 None of the explanations sounds remotely plausible to
 me, and furthermore they all contradict each other. But
 they promise a comforting certainty.

 "Humankind cannot bear very much reality," said T.S.
 Eliot.

 These people have every right to offer me unsolicited
 advice; after all, I chose to make the state of my health a
 topic for public discussion, so I can't grumble that they
 want to join the conversation. But I suspect everyone
 who is diagnosed with cancer gets similar advice, which
 they'd be ill-advised to follow.

 Anecdotal evidence is worthless. If someone testifies
 truthfully that she did well drinking herbal tea instead of
 getting chemotherapy, that tells you exactly nothing about
 the relative odds of getting well. The people who died are
 not available to testify, so you don't know how many of
 them there are in either case. And people who get
 conventional treatment and get better don't become
 crusaders. They count themselves lucky and get on with
 their mercifully unshortened lives.

 Other writers are consumed with rage. "(Your column)
 made me so angry that we women are not given all the
 information we really need to make health decisions,"
 one wrote. "I was so sorry for you."

 But I'm not sorry for me, and I think I had all the
 information I needed.

 I know tamoxifen, the likely cause of my uterine cancer,
 is a powerful drug, with a number of serious and
 well-documented side effects. You wouldn't want to take
 it for - oh, I don't know, mild hypertension, say. But it
 reduces the chance of breast cancer by more than it
 increases the chances of all those other bad things. It is
 no one's fault, and most assuredly no male conspiracy
 against women, that medical science cannot tell in
 advance who will win and who will lose.

 All I know right now is that I'm still in the game.