Cancer makes me angry. Very angry.
It made me angry more than 60 years ago when my godfather was diagnosed with lung cancer and died. I was angry then. And I'm even angrier now. They told me then that I wouldn’t have to worry about cancer when I grew up. “It’s okay,” they said. “It will be cured by then.” They lied.
They always say they are close to a cure for cancer. Always. But every day we hear of more people being diagnosed with cancer. And every day we seem to hear about more types of cancer then we ever heard of before.
In the case of Joe Biden you have to wonder how his prostrate cancer was allowed to advance so far that it has now spread to his bones. They say prostrate cancer is easily conquered if detected early and this man has no doubt been examined and checked out regularly, multiple times, I’m sure. His health has been thoroughly monitored. Perhaps Biden and his family even knew about this long before they told us about it yesterday. That's being speculated about now and more remains to be seen, but still . . . . back to the menace of cancer.
Cancer makes me angry.
It made me angry when my father was diagnosed with cancer; and later, my mother as well.
My father looked me in the eye and told me he would beat it in the end. And he did. Luckily, he didn’t die of cancer. But the removal of most of one lung seemed to leave his breathing capacity so diminished that I’m sure the cancer chopped extra years off his life.
My mother was not so lucky. The cancer had already metastasized by the time they discovered it. The doctor gave us the bad news as we stood in a hospital hallway. “It has already spread,” he said. He talked about my mother as if she wasn’t even there. He mentioned the word “palliative.” Then, he was on his way. But my mother was there and she heard what he said. She simply chose not to dwell on it and lived her remaining time best as she could.
And then my brother-in-law was gone just three weeks after his diagnosis. And my beloved sister, gone less than a week after the doctors told her they were "out of options."
And it doesn't matter who you are or how famous you are or how much success you've achieved or how much money you've amassed -- cancer finds you. Again, look at the example of Joe Biden, and his son Beau as well.
Cancer makes me angry.
Maybe it’s a guy thing. But the injustice of cancer makes me want to beat the guts out of somebody.
I was angry back in 2008 when former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow died of cancer. A classy guy -- a real gentleman. What did he do to deserve such a fate? Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Steve Jobs. Toby Keith. Go back and look up "famous people who died of cancer" and you'll find the list is endless and gets longer every day. Nothing seems to stop cancer -- not the top doctors and not the best care that all the money in the world can buy.
Nothing.
And it's a sneaky disease. My brother-in-law had no warning. None. One day he was short of breath. He grew weak. And before we knew it, he was gone.
So, don't tell me about cancer's "warning signs" because I'm not necessarily buying it.
I hate it when people say of someone: “He lost his battle with cancer.” Some people don't even have a chance to fight.
And, none of us gets out of here alive. So, no one loses a battle with cancer. No one.
Instead, the rest of us lose. We lose that person’s special talent; their unique contribution; their smile, their friendship, their love. And with each recurrence, with each new bad news bulletin, with each additional death we lose hope as well.
Dammit! Why are people still dying of cancer? WHY?
We don’t want to admit it. We fight bravely on. But fear stalks us and hope continues to die.
If you Google the word “cancer” you will come up with more than a quarter of a billion hits. There are so many cancer theories, cancer funds, cancer marches, cancer hospitals, cancer centers and cancer studies that the enormity of the army amassed to fight cancer gives one pause. Still, there is no cancer cure.
I'm talking about a CURE here, okay? Not extending people's lives or enhancing their quality of life for a temporary period. A cure! A cure means cracking cancer's code. Crack the code!
Cancer makes me angry.
And I have no intention of letting go of my anger.
Because cancer is too persistent, too insidious, too pervasive.
Which makes me suspicious as well.
Sometimes I even allow myself to believe that there is some sort of vested interest in not curing cancer if only because cancer treatment has become a lucrative, worldwide industry.
So count me as one of the angry ones – and throw in a dose of hard-learned skepticism as well.
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