Medication Masked Fatal Cancer

Calley Means shares how his mother's death from cancer in 2021 revealed fundamental problems with the healthcare system.

"In 2021, my mom had a pain in her stomach and went in to get a scan at Stanford hospital. She was perfectly healthy we thought, but they told her it was stage 4 pancreatic cancer and she was going to die in a couple weeks. We rushed to her side.

This experience showed me how the system is broken. My mom was on 5 medications over 40 years. Thirty years ago she had high cholesterol - statin. High blood sugar - metformin. She was the typical American patient at 70 years old. Her doctor told her a couple weeks before that she was actually healthy because she was on less medications than an average 70 year old.

These issues weren't identified as a core metabolic issue - just take a pill. She wasn't set on that path of exploring her food, of understanding how sedentary life can eventually give you cancer down the road. The system hand-waved these small things and then they eventually led to a big thing.

Cancer rates are at an all-time high, particularly around kids. Every single chronic disease is at an all-time high this year. It's because we're ignoring the warning signs - we ignored those with my mom."