I often think of Christopher Reeve’s wife, Dana Reeve, who in May 1995 suffered a terrible accident while riding a horse, followed by 10 years of misery completely unable to move. He was an inspiration to everyone but what he went through was beyond what we’ve seen any celebrity have to put up with for an extended period of time. Shortly after his death, Christopher Reeve’s wife Dana developed lung cancer in her mid-40s and died shortly thereafter. Even more surprising is that Dana never smoked. I consider this story, along with the JFK Jr. tragedy in 1999, to be the worst celebrity tragedies of all time. A distant third is the death of Princess Diana in France in 1997.
So how did Dana Reeve die in her mid-40s of horrible lung cancer, when she hadn’t smoked? The theory is that Dana was a very good singer and because of all the secondhand smoke, she had cancer cells in her body for a long period of time. The next theory is that cancer cells like this come to life when the body has been greatly weakened by a prolonged period of grief over a terrible tragedy and great stress that may occur after Christopher Reeve finally dies after 10 long years. I’m not a doctor, but this has always been my theory about smoking, or secondhand smoke and cancer, which has been the plague of humanity for hundreds of years. When the body is greatly weakened by stress, grief, and significant periods of depression for a long period of time, the cancerous cells come back to life again and the spouse or person under stress and grief dies. The story of Christopher Reeve and Dana Reeve is one that deserves a great movie, one that I would love to be able to write one day. What Dana Reeve had to witness and survive, seeing her husband in this state for so long is an amazing tribute to her strength as a person.
My mother smoked for many years, but gave it up 20 years ago. Just under 3 years ago, my father died of cancer at the age of 84, and although he was far from a good husband or person, my mother had been married to him for over 50 years. Three months ago, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and a few weeks later she was in a hospice at the age of 79. The horror is that cancer cells always seem to be in your body, if you smoke, if you are exposed to secondhand smoke, or for other reasons. I have seen people go through stressful events and die soon after from cancer many times over the years. The pattern seems to be very strong and is repeated many times.
Will we see a cure for cancer in our lifetime? Is this global human scourge making so much money that it doesn’t want a cure? I have no answer to this question, but if human life on this planet revolves mostly around money and because of that money no one cares about the horrific human suffering caused by cancer, then there is something very wrong with this Earth that we all call home.