CITIZENS Barbara's Column (A version of this also appeared as an "As You Were Saying" column in The Salem Evening News I figure the odds of my getting anthrax are less than my
odds of getting a carcinoid tumor in my lung, which, as my friend, Chip, found on the Internet, are about 0.20 in five
million. So I'm fearlessly opening all my get-well cards, at least
those whose return address I recognize. Having met the lung thing at the same time as the nation met its terrorist attack,
I have some perspective on the last few weeks and probably on the rest of my life and
America's. If you like, I'll share it with you. There are two useless expressions that I've never been
inclined to use myself, but which I've heard all too often. One's a statement: "It can't happen here;" the other's a
question: "Why me?" There is no earthly reason that Americans should be exempt
from assault or the evil that people in other countries live with every day. We've been lucky, mostly because until
someone shrunk the world, honey, we've been more geographically isolated from our
enemies than, say, Israel is in the Middle East, or 60 years ago, France was from
Germany. Now it is almost as easy to cross the Atlantic as it once
was to ride a tank into Belgium, especially if the enemy employs terrorists or viruses instead of armies. And, by the
way, our government could someday go bad like governments in other nations have, and this is
why some of us practice eternal resistance, oppose gun control, and are glad
freedom-loving George W. Bush is the president at this particular time in
history. There is also no earthly reason why I should still be alive
when some of my friends my age are dead. As a young doctor told me after an emergency hysterectomy nine years ago,
after I'd balked at using "unnatural" hormone therapy, "the natural thing
is to die, now that nature no longer has a use for you." So I was prepared to die this month; after all, "Why not"?
If I'd decided to ignore my odd symptoms, if my primary care physician hadn't sent me for a chest x-ray and his associate
immediately admitted me to the hospital, if my surgeon hadn't been so skillful, I could still
have hardly complained on my way out of not having had a good life in a great country. It is important to note that there is no special reason that
I should get a lung tumor either. I never smoked, so my lungs were the last body parts I was worried about. The disease
anticipated from my family history would be heart-related, and the dangers I have feared,
depending on where I was living at the time, were poisonous snakes, earthquake and
Communist revolution. Also, my tumor had nothing to do with second-hand smoke at
the Marblehead VFW, neighborhood pest control, or emissions from the Salem power plant; I am adding to the
North Shore cancer incidence for no particular reason at all. According to
my doctors and the Internet, "Lung carcinoids are not associated with smoking or with any known
chemicals in the environment or workplace." The good news is they rarely spread and usually don't return
after surgery, which in my case was completely successful and accompanied by excellent care at Salem Hospital.
Lucky me. Lucky America. Despite no longer being geographically
isolated, we are uniquely qualified to deal with just about anything, as we are learning once again about ourselves. It did
cross my feverish mind on Sept. 11 that we have lost our way and our identity over the
past few decades, and perhaps could not deal with the trauma. But by the time the fever
vanished, so had all doubt that America is still the land of the free and
the home of the brave. Those who died in the terrorist attack could not ask, "Why
me?" It might have been many others of us instead. The first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center was
the same flight I took two months earlier to visit my grandchildren. Or one victim could have missed the flight, then
been diagnosed with a less curable cancer than mine a week later. Life is like that -- limited and uncertain. This is why we
must enjoy it as much as we can, without living in fear of our mailbox, not wasting our time asking "Why me?" and insisting
that terrible things "can't happen here" when in fact our luck can't and couldn't hold
forever. Barbara Anderson is executive director of Citizens for Limited
Taxation. Her syndicated columns appear weekly in the Salem Evening News and the Lowell Sun;
bi-weekly in the Tinytown Gazette; and occasionally in other newspapers. |