“Cancer Sucks!” Throughout the last months of her life, my
sister Sherry had the small pin attached to the collar of her sweater. Little
did I know when she received the button from GYNCA (Gynecological Cancer
Association), a non-profit organization that helps women battling
female-related cancers, just how true that little statement was.
Before Sherry’s illness, I had had little experience of what
cancer patients go through on a daily basis. Sure, I had seen people who had
lost hair because of chemotherapy. I had noticed some with limbs swollen from
lymphedema. I had watched from afar as acquaintances lost or gained weight,
side-effects of the therapies or medications used to fight the disease.
But walking down the path beside someone you love is
something entirely different. I learned first-hand just how incredibly badly
cancer sucks. Without going into specifics, I can tell you that her losing
battle with the disease was horrible and heart-rending. A cure for cancer
can’t come soon enough.
How does this relate to celiac disease? According to an
article in the American Journal of Gastroenterology,
“the risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and small-intestinal cancers [is] increased
significantly” in celiac disease patients (“Incidence of Malignancies in
Diagnosed Celiac Patients: A Population-based Estimate”). The risk of cancer, estimated
“at about 1.5 times higher” than that of the non-celiac population, is still
not even in the ballpark when compared to many other health risks. (Take smoking,
for example.)
As small as the cancer risk may be, however, why would
anyone with celiac disease tempt fate by choosing to eat gluten, even if you
are asymptomatic? The battle to maintain a gluten-free diet isn’t easy for most
of us, but I’m here to say that it’s far easier than the battle to overcome
cancer.
(Note: If you read Celiyak, you may have noticed that I
have taken a break from writing in recent months, because of the precious time
I was spending with my sister. Celiac disease definitely takes a back seat to
cancer. Moving forward, I plan to record my observations about celiac disease
more frequently.)
