Olympic Spirit when the Foe is Cancer

I must admit I am totally distracted by the Olympics these days. Michael Phelps! Holy cow! I just can't get enough.

Of course, the one race I missed the other day featured one of the most determined and high-spirited athletes: Eric Shanteau. Eric competed in the 200m breast stroke semifinal and set a personal best time. But he came in 10th overall, with his time .013 seconds short of assuring him a spot in the final.

Now that Eric's participation in the Olympics is over, he has another foe to face: testicular cancer.

Holy crap. Are you kidding me? This 24-year-old swimmer, the 10th best in the world in breaststroke, has cancer?! And he competed with cancer?! As if competing against the greatest athletes in the world wasn't enough, to have to compete against cancer at the same time is just awful. Not to mention that his father was diagnosed with lung cancer last summer, so his family has been coping with one traumatic diagnosis already. But Eric says that his father wanted to see him compete. And so he did. Eric's determination to realize his lifelong Olympic dream in the face of his cancer, I think, captures the Olympic spirit like few other athletes can.

But of course there is a debate. Should he have delayed treatment to go to the Olympics? Surely this time has compromised his health, when he could have been operated on immediately and been recovering by now. What is any dream worth if the price is your health, and possibly your life?

Fortunately, Eric's doctors monitored him and did not see the need for immediate care, which Eric says he would have done if it was necessary. Now that the Olympics are over for him, he will be able to focus on his health and hopefully kick his cancer. I support him - with a little relief that he didn't make that final - and I plan to follow his progress throughout his treatment and recovery.

Check out Eric on the CBS Evening News:


"The road to my Olympic dream has, you know, gone over many mountains." An understatement if there ever was one. Sending good karma your way, Eric.

Colon Cancer Featured on WebMD

I visited WebMD yesterday and was surprised but happy - at first - to see that "Colon Cancer Symptoms" was one of the four featured article tabs (along with an article about how watermelon has Viagra-like effects... Happy 4th of July!) on the front page. How great that they are spotlighting colon cancer, I thought to myself. I clicked the tab, and a handsome and pensive man appeared next to the words "Colon Cancer Symptoms" and "Symptoms usually appear in later stages. Here's what to look for."

A further click led me to the symptoms section of WebMD's Colorectal Cancer Health Center. And again, my initial reaction was, "Wowee! Look at all this great info!" It is a good resource, with information that would be very helpful to someone who is experiencing the obvious symptoms of late-stage colon cancer, or whom has been diagnosed and needs to learn about the disease fast.

But basically, a site like this is not going to help people be any less afraid of colon cancer (or other cancers, if they are similarly discussed, which I assume they are). I know I have to understand that WebMD exists to give unbiased, factual information - and with cancer, the facts are often very, very hard to hear. So I can't wholly blame the website. It just made me feel slightly defeated, I must admit.

I wish that the site could focus more on prevention, especially with colon cancer because it is highly preventable when people are appropriately screened. Instead, the "Prevention" section is buried between "Treatment Overview" and "Home Treatment," which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

This issue is bigger than me. After all, who funds WebMD? How does the site make money? Oh, I know! They get revenue from all the pharmaceutical companies who advertise their drugs! And why would drug companies want to advertise on a site that says, "You can prevent this disease from reaching late stages just by getting screened regularly"? Oh. They wouldn't. Huh.

Sigh. Alright, well, moving on.