Is Climate Change Literally Messing With Our Brains?

FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021: Good evening from Crossville, Tennessee, climate strikers! Crossville is a charming little community, where my Mom and her two goofy cats have lived for over a dozen years. I am now concluding a nearly six-week stay in their house, getting ready to move said felines over to a branch of a retirement wellness facility, where my Mom is now living. Barring something disastrous, I will be returning to my hometown of Seattle, WA this coming Wednesday.

Y'know, one time back in Seattle, I was at a book reading by pagan author Christopher Penczak, who had just published a new book about magick and plants. During this event, he led his audience on a guided meditation (which he's very good at, as a Wiccan high priest), during which I had a shamanic encounter with a bleeding-heart plant. This spirit-plant asked me to perform various tasks, including healing it from a form of cancer using energy medicine. When I had done so, the plant informed me that rates of cancer were skyrocketing in the natural world, just as they have been doing in the human realm--and not just among animal species, but among plants as well. This bit of information has since been corroborated by a number of biologists, in articles both online and off.

I mention this intriguing incident because my extended family and I are now struggling to deal with the fact that my mother was recently diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of cancerous brain tumor known as glioblastoma multiforme. In a period of just a few weeks in January and February, she went from being a fully independent 84-year-old who was still driving, living on her own, with a normal, active social life, to being an incapacitated cancer patient in nursing care who cannot walk unassisted or take herself to the bathroom. And this is not because there is anything wrong with her legs (though she is just now getting over a bad case of shingles, located mainly in her right foot): the brain cancer is affecting her balance in a rather serious way, as well as her peripheral vision and short-term memory. Fortunately, she is still very lucid and articulate, with no problems with long-term memory, making decisions, or expressing her wishes clearly; but my brother is still helping with financial matters via durable power of attorney, which will eventually include selling her duplex here in Crossville.

Why am I wondering if climate change or environmental toxins are influencing cancer rates? Well, it's partly because both sides of my family had little to no history of cancers of any kind prior to my parents' generation. My dad lived for nearly six years with slow-growing liver cancer before passing away in 2009; and now my mom has been hit with a once-rare form of brain cancer, the rates of which are now rising off the charts. Prior to these cases, both sides of my family were most frequently stricken with cardiovascular issues, including heart attacks, arrythmia and hypertension; and yet, they still tended to live well into their 80's and 90's. My dad's cancer has been attributed primarily to his work-related exposure to toxic chemicals in the 1960's and/or 70's (we could have sued the federal government, but they would almost certainly have counterclaimed "assumed risk"). But where in the hell did my mom's glioblastoma come from? It is not well-known why glioblastoma rates have gone sky-high in recent decades; the best guess has to do with repeated exposure to x-rays, but that is far from a sure thing. Nobody has quite figured this out, just as nobody has been able to ascertain why rates of multiple sclerosis are so high in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It is known that rates of brain cancers are highest in western industrial societies, especially the United States, Canada, much of Europe, and Australia, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Anyway...that's why I've been here in Crossville since the blizzard-filled night of February 6. My big projects have been supervising the move of a bunch of furniture to my mom's new assisted-living apartment, and rehoming the cats to the Memory Care division of Uplands Village facility, where my mom will still be able to visit them. Once I return to Seattle, I hope to get this blog up and running again, at least until I'm called back here (perhaps) to assist with selling my mom's house, and putting stuff like her fossil collections into storage. Meanwhile, my mom will be getting chemo drugs and radiation therapy, while I send her distance Reiki, and call her as often as I can...