Someone to watch over me

(6/2025) Joe Biden has become a victim of prostate cancer. One of my brothers has prostate cancer. Small changes in my brother’s behavior starting occurring at random times, long before diagnosis. It turned out a large tumor was growing from his prostate, pressing on his bladder, backing up his urine. This can cause a temporary hallucinatory state. During one of his, he got caught in a conversation with a scammer who talked him out of $97,000. But by 8 o’clock that night, his mind cleared and he called me for help (I did, money saved.) My brother has lived a lifetime of brilliant conversation and healthy habits. None of us around him would have known that a few random times of fogginess were really a deadly cancer disrupting everything we were conditioned to expect from him. By the time we were aware of it, his tumor was the size of a grapefruit.

There are people all around us who are going through something small or large that can change their behavior, and how they deal with life and their responsibilities. Small changes subtle enough that family, friends and professional associates can brush off an odd bad day until, BOOM! suddenly everything is different.

Not long after Ronald Reagan left office, it was publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994. His son Ron said he had seen changes in his father for a decade, His son Michael said Reagan was the same man almost up to the diagnosis. Perception. Dementia in various forms can take a long time to develop and change a person. There was speculation whether this had impacted Reagan’s time in office as President.

Reagan’s Alzheimer’s was very unlikely to have been present during his presidency. Doctors who treated him know that because of medical research. The kind done at the NIH. That is the knowledge that allows us to have confidence in our leaders and elected officials. That is the issue with medical conditions. They can take a long to develop. Often there is no way of telling what their impact is until the symptoms are permanently visible. If we can’t see it, we don’t know it. Even then it takes research and study to understand medical condition.

Perception makes all the difference. The view we have on a person makes a big difference in how we respond to their behavior. For me, suddenly getting a call that my brother had been conned, and listening to his confusion as he described the steps in the event, caused a seismic shift in everything I understood about my sibling. This is a person I love. It made me concerned and sad. Imagine, using my handy examples, a politician who you dislike has the same slow march into the unknown. Is there sadness?

We have federal agencies that research cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other medical conditions. They bring the most answers and cures in the world, taking some of the pressure off the march each of us takes into the unknown. The 2025 federal government is dismantling them, stopping federal programs for research on cancer cures, and other components of medical care, dead in their tracks.

Perception. For Republicans, all perceived unnecessary spending is bad versus medical experiments to find cures for disease. Which part of the experiments are a waste of money? Where is the logic and administrative responsibility in these funding cut decisions?

The proposed 2026 Federal budget has a 40% cut to the total NIH budget.

"The proposal slashes the NIH budget, and in some cases completely eliminates funding for groundbreaking research initiatives, public health programs and essential support systems that have contributed to advancements in cancer prevention, early detection and more effective treatment options. Returning to funding levels from two decades ago – and three decades ago when accounting for biomedical inflation – will set this nation back dramatically in our ability to reduce death and suffering from a disease that is expected to kill more than 618,000 Americans this year alone.

"For the past 50 years, every significant medical breakthrough, especially in the treatment of cancer, has been linked to sustained federal investment in research. This commitment has contributed to the remarkable statistic of over 18 million cancer survivors currently living in the U.S. today. Moving backwards in funding would not only stall scientific breakthroughs but also impact our ability to combat the rising incidence of cancer nationwide. With more than 2 million people in America expected to be diagnosed with cancer this year, now is the time to strengthen, not weaken, our commitment to ending cancer as we know it, for everyone." — Lisa Lacasse, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN):

The changes in our federal government are being done to superficially look good. The people who were taking care of us have been taken out of their jobs and the real impact is that the care you and I need won’t be there when we need it.

Perspective. Maybe the current administration is not a Team Scrooge, cutting Medicaid so that if people die without healthcare they will do their sacrifice by decreasing the surplus population. Or maybe we need more population, the Trump administration can’t seem to decide. Maybe we are supposed to be self-sufficient, sacrifice, and mix up cancer cures in our kitchens.

Perspective and our perception of the people who watch over us. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Maybe in five or six years it will be announced that Trump has an illness that caused an unspecified decline in mental acuity. We are losing not only because there aren’t enough people to care for each other. There aren’t enough of us to care about learning HOW to take care of each other. There aren’t enough of us to watch over each other as we go through life and need care. With the Trump administration, we have even less.