Cancer Destroys Black Lives

The insidious disease has a vendetta against Black People

Richard Roundtree, the star who played Shaft in the 70s has died from cancer at age 81. Another member of the Black community felled by cancer and its destructive effects.

My sister, in her early 60s, currently suffers from brain cancer that has metastasized. She was in remission for several months, had relapsed, received chemotherapy, returned to remission, and now the cancer has taken over her entire body.

My sister hangs on and every day she’s alive is truly a gift. She takes pain medicine and is on oxygen as there are tumors in her lungs. My sister’s liver is almost 100% covered by tumors and is shutting down. Her doctors want her in hospice but my sister wants to remain at home surrounded by her family.

I am praying my sister can outlast the doctors’ grim prediction — that she only has weeks to live. We are going a holistic route as the doctors have wiped their hands of saving my sister and want us to just keep her comfortable. My sister wants comfort but also a way to slow the cancer’s spread and/or shrink the tumors. We are looking at natural and holistic treatments.

I don’t understand why cancer has such a destructive way on Black bodies. My mother suffered from ovarian cancer. Her doctors also wanted her to go into hospice care, but my mother refused that route. She passed away in her sleep six years ago. Before her passing, the cancer had eaten away at the muscle and tissue within my mother’s…