A.L.I.C.E.
It was actually supposed to be impossible; at least, in my head, it was. I’m talking about the death of my mother. Of course, we all know that death is creeping up on us all, but there are some people who none of us can ever imagine leaving this Earth. For me, my mother was one of those people. I’d experienced people walking out of my life by choice, and I’d gotten over them, but to have someone so dear to me ripped out of my life went far beyond my realm of comprehension.
I remember when my mother would try to talk to me about the inevitable. She’d been diagnosed with cancer once again, but this time, something was different. This time, she’d lost a lot of the fight she’d once had in her. And one of the reasons for this was, she wanted to have surgery to remove the cancer, but the doctor who’d been assigned to her refused to release her to the Surgeon. We’d spoken with the Surgeon many times and he would always say that he had to follow the hospital’s policy. If the Medical Oncologist would not release her to him, there was nothing he could do. I was frustrated and so was my mother. We’d spoken with her Oncologist several times, and my mom had repeatedly expressed that she no longer wanted chemotherapy. She’d had it several times before and it had made her gravely ill. She wanted to have surgery to remove the cancer because she’d become terrified of chemo. She absolutely refused the drug, and like me, she thought that the doctor would care enough about her life to just go ahead and release her. This didn’t happen. Instead, she kept insisting that my mother take chemo, and when my mother refused, the doctor suggested chemo pills. She was just as unyielding as my mother. It was almost like a stand-off. My mother refused to take chemo and her Oncologist refused to release her for surgery. Because of this, my mother finally agreed to receive the pills, but she’d determined within her heart that she would not take them.
The pills arrived at my house, but by this time, my mother was back in Mississippi. “I’m gonna go to the Post Office to ship your pills tomorrow,” I said to my mother, but her response didn’t shock me at all. “No. Just keep them there. I’m not taking them. I’m just gonna go organic.” My mother was overly determined to get the surgery to remove the cancer, but since the doctor had refused to allow her to be treated the way she wanted to be treated, she’d decided to fight the cancer by eating organic foods. The problem with this was, she wasn’t committed. It was not uncommon for me to call her while she was in the middle of eating something fried or sugary. I’d fuss at her, but she’d always counter with, “I eat healthy most of the time. I’m just having a cheat day.” Amazingly enough, she was convinced that she was getting better. She was sure that the next time she went to the doctor, they’d declare that she was (once again) cancer free.
In October of 2018, I lost my mother to lung cancer. If I am to be honest, I don’t feel like she simply died; to me, my mother was murdered by neglect. She was killed by the neglect and greed of a doctor who couldn’t seem to see past lining her pockets. Let me explain.
My mother had done a lot of research in her attempt to heal herself, and one of the things she’d discovered was that doctors are paid in the upwards of $8,000 every time they prescribe chemotherapy to a patient. Rehema Ellis from NBC News reported the following, “It is a unique situation in medicine: Unlike other kinds of doctors, cancer doctors are allowed to profit from the sale of chemotherapy drugs. Doctors in other specialties simply write prescriptions. But oncologists make most of their income by buying drugs wholesale and selling them to patients at a marked up prices” (NBC News/Cancer Docs Profit from Chemotherapy Drugs/Rehema Ellis). The mystery was obviously solved! Even the Surgeon could not understand why my mother’s Oncologist would not simply release her since she didn’t want chemotherapy, but the truth was becoming more and more clear. Cancer is a billion-dollar industry, and many of the doctors who’ve put on their war boots to fight the disease have prostituted themselves to Big Pharma. They’ve come to value money over human life. Eight thousand dollars is a lot of money, and while every single human being is worth far more than a few thousand bucks, to a greedy doctor, a cancer-ridden soul is nothing but a payday.
Before my mother passed, she’d conducted a lot of research, and what she’d discovered was that most cancers are the products of environmental pollution and, of course, the foods we eat. On the other hand, I focused more on the spiritual side of cancer. I remember sitting up with my sister while my mother was fighting for her life in the other room of my house. We both cried and talked about how we KNEW without a shadow of doubt that there was SOMEBODY out there who knew how to fight the disease, but we just didn’t know where to turn. We’d conducted a lot of research, but with limited resources and little time, we felt as if our hands were tied. It is for this reason that I decided to create an initiative to fight against the very demon that came after my mother’s life. Introducing A.L.I.C.E, a program named after my mother, Alice Buckner. A.L.I.C.E. stands for Awareness, Lessons and Information for Cancer Eradication. The goal of this program is to educate others about cancer, its origins and how to effectively fight it. Most importantly, I want to provide the links, resources and the connections that my family so desired to have in my mother’s last days.
If you have any good resources, please use the form below to share them so that we can share them with the people who need them. Let’s not continue to allow cancer to terrorize our nation!