There is always more to do

Way back in the late 1960s and early 1970s most people my age were determined to change the world. We would eradicate hunger, poverty, disease and everything else we thought needed to be fixed. There would be no wars anywhere on the planet. Peace and love were the prime directives.

Many years later, on cold, dreary nights, we realize that we did change the world. Was it for the better? Sometimes, but not always.

Did we obliterate war? Nope, not even close.

Did we eradicate hunger? Nope. But the proliferation of weight loss programs indicates that many of us have gone overboard. Instead of sharing with people we know who are hungry, we eat and eat and eat until we find that we no longer fit into our favorite clothes. Then we eat some more.

Plus, much of what constitutes world hunger is more a problem of distribution than supply.

How about disease? This one is a little different. The last case of smallpox officially occurred in 1977 and the World Health Organization declared it gone in 1980. Even though it has officially been eradicated, things like that tend not to follow the rules and pop up in places that never had to deal with them before.

We don’t have to worry about many of the afflictions of the past. When was the last time you heard of someone having diphtheria, mumps, dysentery, or polio? They still exist but in much smaller numbers. We can thank vaccines, sanitation and hand washing for this.

On the other hand, I’m guessing that we all know someone who has had some form of cancer. We are making progress on this one. The word cancer used to be a death sentence. Not any more. True, it is still a frightening disease. The common treatment involves removal of the cancer, followed by radiation to mop up any remaining cancer cells, then follow this with a deadly concoction of drugs that we refer to as chemotherapy. This is usually enough to keep the cancer from returning. For awhile.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Everybody, including me, urges women to get a mammogram. There are pink ribbons everywhere. Mammograms do not prevent cancer. Instead, they allow doctors to find the cells that ran amok in time to remove them before the cancer has a chance to kill the patient.

Then there are the ultra-rare diseases such as the one that my dear grandson, Jacob, is dealing with. According to his parents, pituitary tumors occur in 0.1 out of a million children. Out of that 0.1 in a million, 3% go on to have Crooke’s Cell Adenoma. His doctors have never seen a case like his. They have read all the material available and monitor him for any evidence that the tumor has returned. Jacob is only 10 years old. He will have to take thyroid hormones, growth hormones and steroid hormones for the rest of his life as his ability to produce his own has been eliminated by the tumor. No child should have to deal with this.

Our generation changed the world. We created separate but equal schools. That didn’t work. We created those people who cannot seem to utter a sentence without at least one four-letter word. We created doctors who, despite their best intentions, still don’t know how to prevent most of the problems that befall us.

We have done many things to make life easier. We have created alternate sources of energy. Diseases that were once common are now rare. Our children are puzzled by wringer washers and phones with dials.

We may not have erased hunger, poverty or disease but we are working on it. It will never be enough.