Hope Survives

As a journalist and communications consultant, I equate getting a story on the CBS News show, 60 Minutes, to hitting the jackpot (except that luck rarely plays more than a very small role). So when I saw a story last spring about a side effect-free cancer treatment and possible cure in development, I became breathless and tearful with hope. The 60 Minutes piece was about a retired TV and radio station owner and engineer who dedicated his life to curing cancer after being haunted by the hollow faces of children suffering from leukemia, the cancer he’d been diagnosed with six years earlier. “The Kanzius Machine: A Cancer Cure?” tells the story of John Kanzius (pronounced “Kansas”), who in a lightbulb moment that flashed in the middle of the night when side effects from chemotherapy kept him from sleeping, realized that he could use radio waves to fight cancer. He began rummaging through his kitchen cabinets for some pans to begin construction of a machine that would ultimately lead to the destruction of tumors in rabbits and rats. John Kanzius died on February 18. And although it’s horribly unfair that he did not get to realize his dream of seeing his machine destroy a tumor in a human, the hope he inspired in millions lives on. The John Kanzius Research Foundation states on its website: “John’s passing, at a hospital near his winter home in Sanibel, Florida, has come at a time when his cancer invention was entering the final stages of animal testing and nearing the time when it would become available for human clinical trials. The Foundation was formed shortly after John announced his invention, the Kanzius External Radio Frequency (RF) System, as a way to update the progress of his efforts, which have soared at a rapid pace. ‘We will not stop until John’s vision becomes reality,” said Maryann Yochim, president of the Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation. “Our only regret at this point is that John will not be here to see the first cancer patient cured with his technology. But, we believe strongly that this will happen. It’s only a matter of time.’” Time is of the absolute essence for those of us who have been punched by cancer. And on the Kanzius Foundation site, one hears an eerie reminder of that. With every passing second, a counter ticks to mark how many cancer deaths have occurred this year. Right now it’s 80,787; in a minute and a half, the counter will change to 80,788, when one more person has died of this horrid disease. Please watch "The Kansius Machine: A Cancer Cure?". to keep your hope alive. Interestingly, it hails from a show that’s signature sound is the ticking of a stopwatch. With love and always hope,rnLori LoriHope.com This post originally appeared on Lori's CarePages blog, Hope for Cancer: what helps. what hurts. what heals.