Dear Cancer,
You are a horrible disgusting thing that destroys everything in your path. Whenever you get your teeth in to someone all you do is cause death and destruction. Everybody hates you and no one wants you around. How can we keep you from infecting our friends and families?
It all starts with the diagnosis which always feels like a death sentence. Leaving the infected person (now called the patient) feeling alone and scared. The patient’s family rallies around them but you make them feel like no one can help them.
Then comes the treatment and if you don’t kill them that will to. The patient fights with all they have trying to overcome everything you throw at it. The feel weak and tired have no appetite and only want to sleep. Then comes the chemo and they can’t sleep can’t eat can’t do anything but sit there and feel awful.
So, they sit there and feel more alone and more unneeded. The patient is left wondering why they are even fighting. Their friends and family rally for them and sometimes they go in to remission. However, once you have cancer you are prone to get it again whether it is in the same place or a completely different kind of cancer. There are more types of cancer then probably any other illness. We have special research teams for everyone but cannot keep up with the destruction and carnage cancer leaves behind.
Cancer has infected many people in my life, I will tell you a little about them. First, I remember is my Great-Grandfather on my mother’s side. He was diabetic and seen his Dr. regularly but they didn’t find the cancer till it was spread everywhere and there was nothing they could do for him. So I watched the man that taught me so much just wither away and die a slow painful death.
Next, is a little girl named Gracie, 5 years old, she was my best friends cousin. She got leukemia and the cancer and treatment ravaged her little body. She did something miraculous she went in to remission and was “healthy” for 8 years. The cancer was hiding and it came back tougher and meaner than ever. Still she tried to fight the good fight and it tore her and her family apart. She died at the young age of 15, possibly the bravest little girl I ever met.
Then you attacked my father. We had a rocky relationship for many years but we were mending it and getting back on track. He was a brave and selfless man who did everything he could to help any one that needed it. You came in the form of lung cancer and metastasized to his colon and prostate. He fought till he couldn’t fight any more and was ripped from this earth in possibly the most painful way I have seen. I have seen a lot of death as a caregiver for over 13 years but cancer death is always the hardest.
Now my Mexican mother, my oldest and closest friends mother the woman who took me in and looked after me as her own, is now diagnosed with breast cancer. We rallied around her and helped in every way we could. We watched a woman who is never sick and managed to survive getting crushed by a forklift, get weak and sick. She fought so hard and just finished chemo and radiation to find out she has another tumor in her back. She has already had 12 back surgeries due to the forklift incident. So now she waits for the Drs. to tell her what to do next. You however get fat and take everything you can get from her and everyone you get you filthy claws in.
We need to do more to fight and make cancer run away scared. We need to volunteer for every cancer related charities, do the run walks, anything to raise awareness and fund research. Let’s eradicate this killer the way we would a human one. We need to stop it from taking our best from us.
