Prose To Go

The curious case of a 13-year-old boy living in Sleepy Eye, Minn., has probably caught your eye. Daniel Hauser has Hodgkin's disease, one of many types of lymphoma. His parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser, have been resisting the state's efforts to force Daniel to undergo chemotherapy, citing religious reasons.

His mother even took the child and fled earlier this month after Minnesota child protection investigators and a judge determined the case to be medical neglect. The Hausers, who have eight children, are Catholics who believe in a "do no harm" philosophy espoused by American Indians known as the Nemenhah Band. This sect advocates natural healing methods.

Daniel has been called learning impaired and cannot read. He is completely dependent on his parents for guidance. He cannot vote, drive or marry legally.

Surprisingly enough, child neglect cases far outnumber physical abuse. Researchers estimate that as many as 80 percent of all cases reported are due to neglect, which includes not getting medical attention for an underage child.

Most states, of course, provide exemptions for families whose religious beliefs conflict with the child protection laws.

While the family should be able to decide what happens next, the fact is that with medical treatment, Daniel's survival chances are at least 90 percent. If he doesn't get the chemo and other recommended therapy, however, his chances are only 5 percent.

Psychologists say that Daniel, like many teens, is incapable of making treatment decisions. They say that Daniel is mostly focused on pleasing his parents. If he cannot read, how can he decide what to do?

While the adults in his life debate, Daniel is fighting a chest tumor pressing on his trachea, causing pain. He's probably having difficulty swallowing. He's running out of time.

Daniel had one round of chemo in February and needs five more, doctors say. What will happen if he doesn't get chemo? One thing's for sure. Alternative methods and prayers alone won't cure this illness; it's not going away unless he receives chemo, torturous as it is.

Chemo kills the good cells along with the bad. It's toxic but necessary if Daniel is to have any hope for survival.

Children survive cancer at amazingly high rates every day. They are resilient and have positive attitudes. Why won't Daniel's parents give him the best treatment available? What goes through their minds as they lie awake at night?

Painful and debilitating as it is, there's no question what will happen if Daniel doesn't receive chemo. He will die. 

When humor writer Erma Bombeck set out to write a book about kids surviving cancer, she didn't expect to hear them talk about anything but despair. After all, they had been tapped on the shoulder by destiny and told, "We interrupt this life to bring you a message of horror."

She visited a camp for these kids in the late 1980s, when cancer was still considered a death sentence. Parents, teachers and adults in the grocery store would stare at these bald children in horror and shock.

The children, however, had other ideas. They talked about friends who did drugs. An 18-year-old man with friends on drugs told them: "You wanna do drugs? Do chemo for a year. It'll give you the same effect and make you feel just as lousy."

Although she'd been resistant to writing about the children, she was touched by their honesty and humor. Bombeck published I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise: Children Surviving Cancer in 1989. She donated all proceeds to the American Cancer Society and other health organizations.

"Humor and optimism had kept these kids in the mainstream of life," she wrote. "Perhaps laughing and believing in themselves was a major part of their survival. These were kids who had every intention of living long enough to go to Disneyland, drive their mothers crazy, live in bedrooms that should be condemned, go to the prom, eat pizza for breakfast and grow old."

The doctor becomes the VIP of any cancer patient's life. One girl sat on an exam table "popping jelly beans and gazing forlornly at a dead plant on the doctor's windowsill. Her observation: 'I hope he's better at taking care of people than he is his plants.' "

Our attitudes about cancer have changed tremendously since Erma wrote her book over 20 years ago. We no longer think that cancer is contagious. Most of us no longer call cancer patients victims. It's the second leading cause of death, but people are surviving over five and 10 years at phenomenal rates, thanks to early detection and better treatments. Children are surviving cancer at rates as high as 94 percent for leukemia and 85 percent for brain tumors.

One thing hasn't changed, though. Children use humor and their fighting spirit to cope with cancer. Like healthy kids, they live in the moment. They find ways to bring some sense of normalcy and control back to their lives with laughter. They don't usually moan and groan and ask God why they've been so tormented.

After all, they're going to grow their hair back, grow up and go to Boise.

Almost nine million people watched Farrah Fawcett's documentary on her anal cancer journey. Almost as many as the number of cancer survivors in this country.

Fantastic. We learned that Farrah is way more than a pretty face and gorgeous thick hair. That's how I always thought of her, at least. That Charlie's Angel with everything in the world. Men adored her physical beauty, tacking up that sexy poster everywhere and fantasizing about her soft, sweet voice. Women wanted to be her, pure and simple.

Yet cancer knows that no celebrity is immune. It taunts us, like the devil.

Watching Farrah praying and going through her days, exhausted and trying to cope with the stress of learning her cancer was returning to the original site and in her liver, I was awed by her spirit. Somehow, some way, she held it together even when her partner Ryan O'Neal, friend Alana Stewart and son Redmond O'Neal felt miserable, hopeless and lost.

That spirit is what sustains you through the cancer journey, the trek no one wants to take.

Dr. Wendy Schlessel Harpham was a doctor with three young children when she got the news no one wants. In 1990, the news yanked her across the great divide from physician to patient, as she writes in "Happiness in a Storm: Facing Illness and Embracing Life as a Healthy Survivor." She had non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a slow-growing cancer of the lymphatic system with no known cure.

As a doctor, she knew that what matters is not how long a person lives but how she lives. As she went through the dizzying cycle of tests, treatments and fatigue, she made a promise: "I will learn how to live my life most fully despite illness and maybe even because of it."

She was happily married and only 36, with children aged 2, 4 and 6, when she suffered from excruciating leg pain that led to her diagnosis.

"For them, I've always had blue eyes, brown hair and cancer," she writes. Their youthful honesty and outlook helped her shape her own attitude. As her oldest daughter Rebecca described, "Sometimes she's in treatment, and sometimes she's on a 'mission,' " her term for remission.

When Harpham's colleague also was diagnosed with lymphoma, Rebecca's response was: "You two can be survivors together!" Not exactly the way an adult reacts when he gets the news.

It's all part of being in the CC, the Cancer Club. It seeks you for membership relentlessly, whether you want to join or not. Like a nasty used-car salesman or a thief in the night.

As more and more people are learning, however, that devil can be dealt with. It may take your body parts, your hair, your physical beauty, but it can never rob you of your soul. You will always be the same person you were before cancer, only stronger. A new normal, as some of us like to call it.

Have you hugged your spirit today?

Today is a new day for Lisa's blog. I have decided that since cancer has been so insidious in my life, that I must kick its ass.

I like to say I was fortunate to have cancer at age 27. People stare at me, mouths agape. Who wants to be ill so young?

Because I survived. It wasn't a horrible cancer like what Farrah Fawcett is going through. I've seen my mother-in-law succumb to colon cancer. My dad is dealing with the same illness. I love to eat, so I can't imagine a worse deal.

Mine happened on my tongue first. A sore that wouldn't heal. Remember that. My dentist sent me to a specialist after three weeks. Talking to me as if I were a child, that doctor mentioned surgery, radiation ... it was a blur. He even notified me over the telephone. How kind of him. Not unusual, though, when I've shared stories with other Cancer Club members.

That's what I call it, the Cancer Club. There are over 10 million survivors in this country alone. CC membership does not discriminate. You can be 10 years old or 90, white, black or brown. You could be a doctor, steel worker, even a priest. No one is immune.

That's what makes it so scary. I never had a family history of head and neck cancer. I didn't smoke cigarettes or marijuana. Never touched either. I didn't drink a lot or take drugs. Well-meaning people asked me those questions over and over again.

Then there was that look of pity in their eyes. That was the worst. I didn't want their sympathy, I just wanted to be normal again. A woman with hopes and dreams, like everybody else on the planet. To succeed in my career, win some awards, maybe even a Pulitzer.

Not this, what was in 1989 still considered a death sentence. Not my specific cancer, although an intern had written in my file that I had a poor prognosis. Rather, I had an 85 percent chance of being cured. Being young with cancer is a blessing. You are otherwise very healthy. In fact, it's still considered an older person's illness. Which means that often it isn't detected soon enough.

When Kate Jackson described her friend Farrah's illness, she stressed the importance of early detection. Exactly. What a smart woman, I reveled. That is the answer.

We hate getting those tests. The colorectal one is incredibly icky, at least for me. Drinking that stuff and cleaning out your colon. Being hungry. Ugh. I once said we should make the terrorists do that one. It has to be worse than waterboarding.

Yet it is so worth it. Once you go through the test, you are so relieved. You know what you're dealing with. You're up to date, educated, better prepared to face your future. You can make plans with your children and friends. You're not hanging out in limbo anymore, waiting for test results. You can take control of your life again. You thank whatever God you pray to.

I was blessed that I had a dentist who sent me to that specialist. I ended up having surgery at the local cancer center which I cannot praise enough. Another gift is that one of the finest research centers in the world, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, is right here in Tampa. My surgeon saved my life and continues to practice here in town. He cured a friend of mine a few years ago, a law enforcement officer with plenty of good years ahead of him.

For good or bad, this is now a cancer-related blog. Because we have to kick its ass.

This just in: I was shocked to see that President Barack Obama is telling Chrysler to cut its ad budget in half. Here's the story http://hotair.com/archives/2009/05/14/no-joke-obama-setting-advertising-policy-for-chrysler/

OK, if you know me, you will recall that I voted for the old guy, John McCain. I call him the old guy because that was really the main problem that most people had with him. Even Chuck Norris said so.

Nevertheless, I attempt to be a fair and tolerant person. When Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in 2000, I told my Democratic friends and family to stop griping and accept Bush as our president. Since I remember that, I refuse to be a hypocrite and keep complaining that McCain is not our president. Even though he truly had the foreign policy and tons of other experience needed to do the job.

Not to be sarcastic and totally insincere, but I really am trying to like this guy, Barack Obama. He is our president, and we must support him. Unless he turns into a Richard Nixon. But I don't believe that will ever happen; Obama is too intelligent.

Every time I start to warm up to him, though, he shows his freaking arrogance again. Has the president ever run a business? I know the car companies have made many egregious errors, but ... come on. Cutting advertising dollars will hurt the economy.

My true colors are showing again. To see what's happening to even the once-proud-but-now-biased New York Times really pains me. One of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid was "Lou Grant." Much as I dislike the actor Ed Asner, I wanted to be like Billie and the other reporters on that show. Root out evil and expose it for what it really is. Tell the truth. No matter what the costs. Without investigative journalism, who will watch over the scary leaders who might destroy our country?

Obama's decision cuts to the heart of capitalism and what America is all about. Do we put our faith in company executives or a man we elected but don't really know much about? Hasn't Chrysler been in business far longer than Obama's been commander in chief? Surely the corporation has done something right or it wouldn't have sold millions of cars for so many years.

I have to confess, I love Chrysler. My dream car is the 300. The Crossfire is also a beautiful creature, not just a sportscar. I will probably be buried with my 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's the most reliable car I've ever driven, and I've had many cars.

Yeah, I drove just about every American car on the planet. I have the repair bills to prove it. A Ford Fairlane (yikes), a Chevy Cavalier wagon, even a Ford Escort. Yes, I suffered greatly. Believe it or not, I have never been the sole owner of a car built on foreign soil. Scary, isn't it?

I must admit I've been tempted by BMWs and Mercedes. Oooh, they are so gorgeous, so precise. I've flirted with a Jaguar, test driving it. Even an occasional Audi or Lexus might catch my eye. Yet for some reason, I have stuck with the red, white and blue.

When it comes to reliability, my three best performers were a 1979 Cadillac, a 1987 Chrysler Fifth Avenue and the Jeep. The Cadillac was probably T-boned in an accident before I cherished it, yet ran like a trouper and is probably still running somewhere on this planet, if there is a God.

My coworkers jeered at the Fifth Avenue, calling it Big Blue. Grandma's car, they were thinking. Yet it never left me alone on a busy road one early morning like the Ford Escort did. That car was an aberration. That's why Ford no longer makes them.

If you know anything about women, you'll know that we love cars that are reliable. We often fear breaking down somewhere late at night in the wrong part of town.

Chrysler, GM and Ford should be advertising and marketing reliable Big Blues to those women. After all, the minivan and the SUV are still two of the most popular vehicles ever sold in America.

Love it or leave it, that is America. Those big blue, sturdy cars. Embrace them.