Attorney: When you say the surfactant is disruptive to the GI system, what do you mean? Tell us a little more about what that actually means as far as the animal ingesting surfactant or the formulated product that includes a surfactant.
Donna Farmer: Surfactants are named for surface acting substances, because they act on the surface of cells. Unlike when you have surfactants in body soap, you have a tough layer of skin to help protect your other cells from that. Your GI system doesn’t have that protective layer. Those surfactants are very disruptive to those really delicate cells that are in the lining of the GI system.
And there we have it. Supportive evidence that the explosion of modern disease is connected to the mega-consumption of Roundup destroying our intestinal linings. I just never anticipated the information to come from the Monsanto labs and mouth of the Monsanto senior toxicologist herself. Does she have any idea the door that she has just opened?
One day, when people begin to understand the implications of this admission, they will wonder how this wasn’t headline news in the New York Times. It is that big and more. I don’t know how to quantify what the liability will be to Bayer when that intestinal research is mainstreamed. The damage and implications of Roundup are so far reaching that little life has been left unscathed.
WHY THIS MATTERS SO DEEPLY TO ME
In my community of friends, I’m a go-to for personal advice on weird symptoms – because I’ve had them all. I’ve written on GG about my gluten sensitivity, but never shared the full story of the many contributing factors to my health crisis. It seems to resonate with many, so I decided to share more detail in case it helps you to not feel as alone, scared, or sick. I found my way out of a very dark, hopeless health situation, and truly believe most other people can as well once we reclaim control of our personal and collective health.
Four years ago, I was a fully committed patient of mainstream, Western medicine. Under the watch of a traditionally minded and highly credentialed physician, I had become so severely ill with an idiopathic condition that I could no longer sleep, eat, or see well. My kids and I moved in with my parents so that they could take care of us while my husband worked insanely long hours. I was repeatedly sent away by a lineup of specialists who said I was fine because routine blood work said so.
Except that I was 38 and dying, with no diagnosis upon which to hang my hat.
My skin shriveled with a rash. Nausea, GERD, and sinus inflammation were constant. Fatigue and body pain were relentless. I had seizures, numbness, and constant electrical zaps running through my body. I had been treated for this “idiopathic condition” with steroids, two antidepressants, and a benzodiazepine, and the startup and withdrawal effects from these drugs ignited a new level of heath instability. I was getting sicker.
I was extremely anemic and needed a blood transfusion and emergency hysterectomy to stay alive. Even after that huge ordeal of a surgery, I became sicker still, and ultimately lost my ability to walk.
When doctors threw up their hands and sent me to a psychiatrist (the place where most sick women are eventually sent if there are no obvious physical answers), it was my final hope. Against all odds, the new psychiatrist ordered routine intake bloodwork that happened to include tests of my vitamin levels. As someone who historically found vitamins either a) a hippy, alternative health kind of thing that wasn’t scientifically proven to be necessary or b) something that gold-chained, overbuilt men who work out at Gold’s Gym or man the cash register at GNC enjoy, I didn’t think it particularly important.
My preliminary results came back. I had severe vitamin deficiencies. After several follow-up vitamin panels, I found myself extremely deficient in B12, B1, B6, D, Folate, Zinc, and magnesium. I had the old-timey diseases Scurvy and BeriBeri. The silver lining? Because my uterus had already been taken, low iron was no longer a problem.
I didn’t have Celiac disease. What I had was leaky gut caused by the combination of gluten and something more. Something was destroying my intestinal lining. And the medications had made everything several degrees worse.
[A quick side note – Because many of my readers are also likely dealing with or previously dealt with psychiatric drug dependency, (frankly most people are these days), I feel your pain of coming off of the medications that the body hugs onto so tightly. It often felt nearly impossible. And I know that doctors don’t believe in your very real withdrawal symptoms, because Pharma says it’s no problem to hop on and off these things, as long as you don’t have an “addictive personality.”]
Ultimately, I fully healed myself by studying Cell Biology and Physiology textbooks, going off gluten, eating mostly organically, slowly tapering (over several years) off the drugs, and carefully supplementing the vitamins that my body was desperately missing. I became a student of how my specific genes work (did a raw DNA data dump through 23&Me) and how to carefully rebuild my body on a cellular level. Amidst all of this study, I kept coming back to the same question – why did this happen? It just didn’t make sense.
Why do people suddenly have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune conditions, idiopathic conditions, depression, anxiety, ADHD, allergies, drug dependencies and resultant suicides? Why are prescription drug sales through the roof? What is going on in our world that has caused these conditions to EXPLODE over the last twenty years? And yes, I believe it has to do with the introduction of Roundup Ready GMOs and the routine pre-harvest saturation of crops with Roundup to make them easier to harvest.
Perhaps if Roundup wasn’t sucking all of the essential minerals out of our food, attacking the VERY SAME BACTERIA that create our supply of serotonin, punching holes in our intestines, or messing with our endocrine systems, we wouldn’t need Big Pharma-supplied supplementation of serotonin, tranquilizers, and anti-inflammatories that once packed my medicine cabinet. Furthermore, if Roundup and other toxins didn’t ruthlessly injure our delicate intestinal wall, we wouldn’t suffer from the atrocious symptoms of Leaky Gut, food sensitivities, and autoimmune disorders. And by the way – did you know that peanuts are grown in the soil as an alternating crop with Roundup-drenched cotton? I think of it each time I see a sweet child needing the administration of an epi-pen after peanut dust finds its way onto his little hand.
The trial today was particularly emotional for me. Ed Hardeman’s soul crushing testimony of the hellish symptoms of cancer treatment felt all too real, and I couldn’t hold my tears in while hearing the intimate details of the nightmare he and his wife survived. The Roundup trial may be about cancer, but it ultimately addresses so much more. We are sick, and until this chemical is off our food and environment, we aren’t going to get better. But we will keep Pharma in business.
And now – onto the woman who has helped make this all possible. After today’s deposition, I would like to FedEx her my medical bill.
Go get her Wisner.
Continuation of the Deposition of Donna Farmer
As many will remember, Monsanto Toxicologist Dr. Donna Farmer – AKA the Defender of Glyphosate – had a reasonably strong (for the defense) video deposition in the Johnson trial as so much evidence of Monsanto’s bad behavior was excluded from discussion. Things have changed. Attorney Plaintiff Brent Wisner’s aggressive, dynamic questioning in today’s Farmer deposition video reveals more information than even GG knew. Jurors frantically fill their notebooks with details, and journalists pound away on keyboards because every single word is just that rich and revealing. It’s hard for me to contain my gasps.
Oh my goodness, where to even start with this one. OK.
The video depicts Farmer sitting at a table, with attorneys all off screen. It shouldn’t matter, but I’ll tell you anyway – she is dressed sharply, with a crisp button-down shirt, dark blazer, chunky pearl necklace, and long, tamed, and red curly hair falling down around her shoulders. She takes her glasses on and off, pending on whether the question requires reading or not. Her appearance is professional and appropriate in giving a competent first impression.
Farmer explains her role at Monsanto as one of responsibility for getting to know the science behind glyphosate, communicating that science, and working through the regulatory agencies to get glyphosate products approved for sale.
Wisner presents a series of articles and corresponding internal emails, providing ample evidence of the sketchy behavior of Farmer and Dr. William Heydens, Monsanto Regulatory Product Safety Assessment Lead. Bummer for them that email lasts forever, because I’m not sure how Monsanto ever recovers from the details revealed.
DeRoos 2003
In an email exchange between Monsanto ecotoxicologist Katherine Carr, Monsanto epidemiologist Dr. Acquavella, Dr. Farmer and others, Carr calls the DeRoos 2003 paper to attention. The DeRoos study concludes that there is a 2.1x risk ratio of developing NHL with exposure to glyphosate. Clearly sparking concern, Acquavella writes: “strangely, glyphosate looks to be one of the pesticides most associated with NHL in this analysis.” He expresses concern that this study, in addition to Hardell and McDuffie studies that showed an increased risk of NHL with exposure to glyphosate, could add “fuel to the fire.”
Wisner asks: “Would it be fair to say that Hardell, McDuffie and now DeRoos, all showing elevated risks of NHL associated with glyphosate, was creating concern that in fact Roundup might cause NHL?”
Farmer gives a clumsy response: “No, I don’t think it was a concern that Roundup caused NHL. I think there were epidemiology publications out there. From what I understand from John, there were….one had exposure…there were differences in these studies…so it wasn’t a concern for …that Roundup was causing NHL.”
Farmer’s words become choppy and rapid, and clearly she is feeling stressed. I’m not sure why she didn’t answer: OF COURSE we were worried, but felt confident that we still had enough research to support our conclusion.
Wisner continues, pointing out that Monsanto epidemiologist Acquavella also stated that “it looks like NHL and other lymphopoietic cancers continue to be the main cancer epidemiology issues for both glyphosate and alachlor.”
Farmer responds “That’s what he is saying, but once again, it wasn’t our concern. This is from the epidemiology studies, but not from the studies and the animal data we had. It wasn’t a concern for us.”
WHAT? I thought that Monsanto relied mostly on epidemiology to prove the non-carcinogenic profile of glyphosate. Why would she publically dismiss a human study in favor of the animal studies?
Eriksson and Combating Organic
Farmer is shown an email from 2008 between Farmer and Dean Nasser, reporting on the recent Eriksson epidemiological study that found a 2.02 odds ratio of NHL from glyphosate exposure. Nasser sent the group an October 28th article from a GG favorite website, Beyond Pesticides, which highlighted the results of the Eriksson study. Beyond Pesticides recommended people “avoid carcinogenic herbicides in foods by supporting organic agriculture and on lawns by using nontoxic land care strategies that rely on soil health, non-toxic herbicides.” Sounds like a reasonable measure in general, but apparently not if you are in the business of peddling pesticides.
In response, Farmer writes in the group email: “We have been aware of this paper for a while and knew it would only be a matter of time before the activists pick it up…How do we combat this?” She is looking to combat organic and nontoxic agriculture, despite what should be considered an alarming epidemiological study that glyphosate may cause NHL.
Farmer defends herself by rambling that it’s “important that people understand that herbicides – dose makes the poison, so you have to look at this that glyphosate was not carcinogenic. I don’t want people to be misled that all these herbicides are carcinogenic and everything is used out there that is organic is nontoxic.” She encourages a balance of science that takes into account that herbicides are evaluated for safety and been approved for use by regulatory agencies. Wisner points out that “combating” organic isn’t “balanced” at all.
GG SIDEBAR: I never fail to feel even worse about our regulatory agencies after the unveiling of each fiasco.
Wisner’s animation can really crack me up – a Wisnerism that pops up now and then is “Maybe my eyesight is blurry,” right before he nails someone with something extremely incriminating. I might try and incorporate that in my own life. i.e. “Maybe my eyesight is blurry, but it looks like you just flipped me off for trying to change lanes.” Or “Maybe my eyesight is blurry, but I swear you just opened a new lipstick at Sephora, sampled the new lipstick, placed it back into the box, sealed it and put it back on the shelf for someone else to enjoy.”
Ghostwriting
Wisner asks Farmer to define “ghostwriting.”
Ghostwriting as per Dr. Donna Farmer: If someone writes something and someone else puts their name on it without ever contributing to it. Or someone writes something that someone had nothing to do with anything and put their name on it and somebody wrote everything and put their name on it, that would be ghostwriting.
Pretty clear definition, right?
Wisner continues: Is a form of ghostwriting somebody else writing a portion of it and not disclosing their involvement?
Farmer: No
Wisner: You don’t consider that ghostwriting?
Farmer: No, I gave you my definition.
Wisner: Would you call that deceptive authorship?
Farmer: I’d call it editing.
Wisner: So if I prepared a paper at school and someone literally wrote paragraphs of that paper and I submitted that paper under my name, even though another person wrote portions of it…you would agree that is unethical, right?
Farmer: I am saying that I think you have to look at the contributions on a case by case basis. So I gave you my definition of ghostwriting.
GG: I think that Monsanto attorneys provided her with an extremely vague, inarticulate definition of ghostwriting to provide a catch-all, evasive answer to the heavy “editing” she and co-conspirator Dr. Heydens executed.
The conversation and debate about what constitutes ghostwriting continues. Eventually, Wisner digs into specific examples of Monsanto’s ghostwriting, proving the ghostwriting through internal email correspondence.
WILLIAMS ARTICLE
In the 2000 Williams article Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans, the conclusion of the study is: “under present and expected conditions of use, Roundup herbicide does not pose a health risk to humans.”
Despite evidence that Monsanto employee Dr. Heydens substantially edited and wrote portions of the manuscript, he is not listed on the author line. Wisner shows Farmer a series of email exchanges between Heydens and some study authors. When discussing the progress of the Williams study, study coordinator Doug Bryant writes: “Bill Heydens, Donna Farmer, Kathy Carr, and all those at Monsanto have been helping get the document through QA…Bill [Heydens] has proposed completing the QA changes, then sending the edited form of the manuscript back to Cantox to incorporate final comments by the reviewers and send it off.” (Cantox appears to be a scientific and regulatory consultancy).
Within 30 minutes, Heydens responds that HE, not Cantox, will “review the final manuscript with reviewer comments incorporated before it is sent to the publisher.”
Heydens forwarded this email exchange to Farmer with the comment: “FYI. And Dougie thinks I would actually leave the final editing to him unsupervised…”
Wisner presses an extremely uncomfortable, fast-talking Farmer on the “final editing” point. She claims that he was only talking about correcting any errant page numbers, not about the conclusions of the publication. COME ON.
GG: What this exchange tells us is that Bill Heydens and Donna Farmer intended to have complete control of the study, to the point that they claimed the rights to final edits upon submitting the Williams study. What follows is so good, that I’m going to try my best to get the wording all in. Sorry for any small errors.
Wisner talks about an email exchange involving Heydens and Farmer on the topic of the Williams paper:
Wisner: Bill Heydens says “finally, attached are the text, tables and references. I sprouted several new gray hairs during the writing of this thing, but as best I can tell at least they have stayed attached to my head.”
Wisner continues: You can see the attachment. Do you see the title of that study right there?
Farmer: Yes
Wisner: That’s the same title of the Williams article that was ultimately published?
Farmer: I believe so
Wisner continues to pin Farmer down with more incriminating evidence of ghostwriting, including a 2015 email that reveals Heydens discussing using a similar approach to discrediting the IARC classification by “ghostwrite[ing] the exposure tox and genotox sections.” He continues “An option would be to add [scientists] Greim and Kier or Kirkland to have their names on the publication, but we would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit and sign their names, so to speak.” Finally, Heydens writes: “Recall, that is how we handled Williams, Kroes, and Munro 2000.”
GG: Holy cow – is there any room to possibly think that Heydens and Farmer DID NOT ghostwrite? Not really.
Wisner asks Farmer: “We have Bill Heydens saying 15 years later that Monsanto actually ghostwrote that article. Are you asking the jury to just think all of this is untrue?”
Farmer uncomfortably stutters and says that she got lost in Wisner’s argument. She asks for a repeat of the question.
YET ANOTHER GHOSTWRITE
Wisner presents the article Developmental and Reproductive Outcomes in Humans and Animals After Glyphosate Exposure, A Critical Analysis.
Farmer explains that she originally got in touch with the authors to talk about doing a review on the developmental/reproductive safety of glyphosate. I presume to attempt to disprove the growing criticism that glyphosate causes developmental and reproductive harm.
Farmer explains that she was originally going to be an author, but she ran out of time so authors Williams and DeSesso continued without her. She says that she did some minor editing.
Wisner asks: “Minor editing. Did you redline it?”
Farmer responds: “I don’t know….well….maybe more, I don’t know. I know I did some minor things. If you have a draft, I’d be happy to show you what I contributed.”
Farmer insists that because she did so little, her name was taken off as an author. Wisner presents her with an email from the lead author of the paper, who wrote: “Donna, you have added significant text to the document with regard to the following references…unless someone from Monsanto plans to be listed as an author, we need to see these references in order to verify that we are in agreement with the newly added text.”
Farmer claims that she provided the requested references, and the study authors were free to make up their own minds.
Wisner again inserts his metaphor: “When you were in school and you had to write a report for a professor, did you just copy and paste things written by other people into your report and say it’s ok because I agree with them?” Farmer responds: “That’s not what happened here.”
Wisner concludes with a final example of Farmer ghostwriting in the Mink epidemiological study.
I look at the jury, and can tell that they more than understood the gist of the remarkably successful corruption that has kept a carcinogen for sale en masse on the shelves of Home Depot. Right next to sweet Easter Bunny displays and rich arrays of colorful flowers.
MONSANTO’S TURN
Farmer shows up in a fresh blue shirt for what will be a much more comfortable interaction with only Monsanto attorneys. I would be lying if I said I paid attention through the entire line of Monsanto questioning. It was two full hours of monotonous chatter about studies that I’ve never heard of. These must be the miniature fonted studies that AOJ reported were used in Monsanto Opening Statements with mad-highlighter Stekloff.
Ever marketing her beloved product, Farmer explains that she uses Roundup herself, and that she recommended that the son of one of her friends strap on a handy Roundup backpack sprayer for efficiency in weed killing.
Given the admissions that Plaintiff Attorney reads in front of the jury following Farmer’s testimony, I’m not going to belabor the lengthy discussion of Farmer’s claim that Monsanto was extremely responsible in their testing. There really is no point because ultimately Monsanto admits to many failures to test.
In terms of what the jury likely thought of her deposition, I think that she would have seemed quite genuine and believable had Wisner not just skewered her and eaten her whole. There realistically was no way that she could talk her way out of such incriminating email evidence, no matter how hard she tried and how much time attorneys spent in preparing her.
One of the cute portions shown to the jury was a chart of how Monsanto responded to Dr. Parry’s recommendations for further study of glyphosate and formulated product carcinogenicity. It wasn’t a to-do chart from years ago, but rather a chart put together recently with help from the attorneys in an attempt to show all of the studies undertaken to make sure Parry was incorrect in his conclusion that Roundup could cause cancer.
If I didn’t know better, I might think – wow, they really did do a lot of studies on their own. But then I might also wonder why I hadn’t heard about these safety studies until now, given that Phase 1 was the causation, science phase.
Plaintiff Attorney Jennifer Moore gets to work, setting the record of this Monsanto-led, two-hour, confusing, and extremely dull deposition straight.
Admissions
Jennifer Moore (JM) reads a list of Monsanto’s admissions to the jury. OK, so this list is so bad for Monsanto that I think the Plaintiff could end their arguments now and still win significant damages. She went so quickly that I hope I have the wording correctly. Will eventually update when I can see the transcript.
JM: Admit that Monsanto has never studied the association between glyphosate formulations and NHL.
Monsanto: Admitted
JM: Admit that Monsanto has not conducted a long-term animal carcinogenicity study since 1991.
Monsanto: Monsanto admits that it has not identified any 12 month or longer toxicity studies that it has conducted since 1991.
JM: Admit that Monsanto is not precluded by any law, regulation or ordinance from conducting a long-term animal carcinogenicity study on glyphosate formulation.
Monsanto: Admitted
JM: Admit that Monsanto has never conducted a long-term animal carcinogenicity study on any surfactant used in a glyphosate formulated product.
Monsanto: Monsanto admits that it has never conducted a 12 month or longer term animal carcinogenicity study on any surfactants used in glyphosate based products. To the extent a long-term carcinogenicity study is intended to apply to rodents of 4 weeks of age, Monsanto denies the request.
Expert Testimony of Dr. Chadi Nabhan
Plaintiff expert witness Dr. Chadi Nabhan – hematologist, oncologist, and now Chief Medical Officer at Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions – returns to the courtroom. You may remember him as my expert witness crush during the Johnson trial – well, worry not, he’s STILL all that. It makes life covering the trial so much more fun. And this jury deserves a treat after that absolutely energy-draining Farmer deposition video and Stekloff becoming increasingly whiney by the minute.
In the Hardeman trial, Nabhan’s airtime is considerably less than that in the Johnson trial. His testimony is limited to an hour-long explanation of his evaluation of Hardeman’s cancer treatment as well as a general overview of patient expectations and experiences when being treated for aggressive NHL.
Nabhan explains that the standard treatment for an aggressive NHL is something called R-CHOP. The acronym ties together the different drugs included in treatment: Rituxan, Cytoxan, Adriamycin, Oncovin, and Prednisone. An overwhelming feeling of dread floods my body upon the discussion of steroids, given my own experience. They can truly mess up the mind and body for a significant amount of time. However, in a case like Hardeman’s, it doesn’t sound like there were any alternatives.
Hardeman suffered some mean side effects, which resulted in a dose drop of R-CHOP. However, he persisted through the treatment and today has no evidence of NHL and an excellent prognosis.
Given Nabhan’s head-to-head with Monsanto attorney Lombardi in the Johnson trial over including idiopathic causes as a cause in a differential diagnosis, I expect that he must be braced for a brutal cross examination. However, Monsanto passes on their opportunity to cross examine, and after a remarkably short testimony, Nabhan concludes his testimony.
Hardeman Testimony
Ed Hardeman takes the stand to talk about his extremely challenging experience fighting cancer. He’s dressed nicely today, with a blue and white button down shirt and tan sports jacket. Hardeman attends the trial off and on, and each time I see him, I wonder how he can control himself as Monsanto attorneys fight tooth-and-nail to tell him he is wrong. He’s a quiet man around the courthouse, so I’m eager to hear him tell his story.
Plaintiff attorney Moore asks Hardeman if he ever expected that he would get cancer from using Roundup. Hardeman responds that he thought it was safe. He just went to the hardware store and bought it right off the shelf. He read the instructions in the store and followed them when using the product at home. If he had read on the Roundup label that it could cause cancer, he wouldn’t have bought it and would have just let the poison oak grow.
Hardeman tells the jury that he looked at the instruction label once upon purchasing for the first time, and then a few times (2, 3 or 4 times) after that over the course of 26 years of use.
Because Hardeman already testified during Phase 1 about his exposure and use, today’s testimony focuses more on his NHL treatment. As we learned from Dr. Nabhan, the R-CHOP treatment can be extremely brutal. Moore questions Hardeman on his treatment, and we learn about his severe nausea, hair loss, bone pain, fatigue, and mental anguish. Hardeman used his military training to shift his mindset; he made cancer the enemy to be beaten.
In describing these experiences, Hardeman’s voice is slow, sad, exhausted, and totally real. It’s so real that there is no sense of exaggeration or disingenuity at all.
Hardeman chokes up a bit on his words, and I notice that his wife, Mary Hardeman is wiping away tears. Oh no – I get a lump in my throat, and my eyes are watering too.
Screw Monsanto.
Brian Stekloff stands to perform the cross examination. I’m surprised that he is going to ask anything, amidst tears and serious gloom among all witnessing Hardeman tell his tragic story. He opens by reminding Hardeman that he has no questions in understanding how difficult it was to discuss his illness.
BUT – he does want to get petty and ask about a small, inconsequential detail.
Stekloff, by the way, has a different energy today. He was corporate, but also likable and strong during Phase 1. Now, he’s showing the attitude of a sore loser. The other two Monsanto attorneys don’t exhibit the Stekloff personality shift. Of all times to shift personality, I wouldn’t think the most strategic time would be just when the jury is deciding on a potentially astronomical punitive damage penalty.
Stekloff tests Hardeman about how many times he looked at the Roundup label through the years, implying that he knows what Hardeman said in his deposition. I gather it must be different than the 2-4 times that he told Moore a few minutes ago. The binders of Hardeman’s deposition are distributed, and Stekloff reads from the pages that Hardeman said he looked one time at the label when buying it in 1986 and perhaps another time in 1988.
Stekloff implies that Hardeman is lying in saying that he checked label more than twice over the 26 years of use. Hardeman doesn’t deny that he said two times in the deposition.
Here’s the thing – Stekloff looks painfully petty here. I know he is trying whatever tactic possible to impeach Hardeman, but what reasonable person would care if he looked at the label 2, 3 or 4 times over the course of 26 years. Moreover, the label didn’t have a cancer or protection warning to begin with, so the relevance isn’t even significant in relation to the matter at hand. The timing of the questioning also felt off after tears were just shed as we heard the blow-by-blow of a miserably aggressive cancer treatment.
On redirect, Moore asks Hardeman about the conditions of the room in which Monsanto took his deposition. I guess it was a small, windowless conference room in a hotel, and lasted a full day. She is likely trying to make a point that the discrepancy in his report as to how many times he checked the label was influenced by the stifling environment in which the deposition was taken. The argument doesn’t fly, and Chhabria has to instruct the jury to disregard several statements.
After Hardeman steps off the stand, his wife Mary Hardeman takes his place. With a soft Irish accent, Mary lovingly states: “He’s the love of my life and I could lose him.” Mary discusses her role as the caregiver to Ed during the cancer diagnosis and treatment. Those of us who have taken care of someone extremely ill know of the upsetting daily struggles. She learned to be extremely quiet around the house, as not to overstimulate Ed into increased nausea, vomiting and anxiety. Interestingly, her discussion about needing to be silent reminds me of my own experience coming off steroids, in which sensory overload was so immense that my husband had to sleep on the other side of the house and I couldn’t sit at the table for family dinners. I was simply unable to tolerate the commotion.
The couple still are deeply in love, and the fear of cancer has forever changed their perspective on life. She states: “I wish to God that he had never gotten that darn disease.”
Final Notes
Thanks for hanging in here with me – that was some dense description. I’m back Monday!
© 2019 Kelly Ryerson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
