A minor rant

This seems like an odd post to follow up one about praise and thanksgiving, but I really need to go on a small rant for a moment. During my planning period this morning, I was in the copy room, and I was telling Earl Rowan about Dad. Earl Rowan is something of a lion here at Bradley. He is the color announcer for the football team, he has been teaching history here for decades, and he is just so full of life and energy. He also reminds me a lot of my dad. He is tall and thin and has a moustache, although he and Dad don't really look alike otherwise. But he is also the exact same age as Dad.

So Iwas standing there telling him all about Dad's diagnosis and prognosis, and he finished his copies and left. At this point (as I was still working on my copies), another teacher (who had overheard the entire conversation) stepped forward and essentially informed me that if Dad would just get the acid levels in his body corrected, that his cancer would be cured.

WHAT?!?

Are you serious? So it turns out that she's a big proponent of alternative medicine. I tried to be polite, and I smiled at her and said, "Well...I'm a biologist, and I really don't think there's anything to that. If there were, I think the world would have caught on and oncologists would be doing that instead of chemotherapy, since it's so brutal." Her response? "Cancer is a multibillion dollar industry. I don't think they want you to know about it."

Wow. So apparently, my father's oncologist (and the thousands of other oncologists around the nation) are all evil, money-hungry men and women who would rather see their patients die of this horrible disease than simply give them some alkaline water (which can be bought at health food stores, by the way!!!). Hmm. Who knew?

I mean, really. Was that appropriate? Am I just going off the deep end or what? It really kind of irritated me.