Good letter.  I hear the bitterness and anguish, but also vengeance.  Makes me sad.  Are you ok InannaWhimsey?

I am quite alright, thank you.

I think cancer has affected everyone I know in some way.  I think of things.  I think of if my father's mother didn't have cancer, I think aboot how different he would have turned out, how he doesn't have to live with the fact that he is older than his mother.  I think of how some silly 'good cancer' in my mother's belly is causing more than just the stupid physical symptoms.  I think of how my grandfather let his prostate cancer grow until it was too late, and the repercussions that still ring aboot that.

Cancer, that waste of time, effort, money, space, and spirit consumes too much in those areas.

It is needless.  Pointless.  It deserves nothing but humanity's contempt and rage and hate.

The letter was my way of expressing that.  In distilled form.

Its bad enough when it rips the life away from somebody old by rotting them from the inside, let alone to see a bald child dealing with it. We really have no reason to complain upon seeing that!

I watched my father in law slip away from lung cancer that had progressed from colon.

My wife's uncle committed suicide from having it.

My dad's baby sister, she got breast then leiukemia then brain at 48.

Just shows were not here that long.... a bag of flesh and bone for a limited time!

Inanna - good letter.  Until this year cancer was something other people got.  Oh yes, it snatched away a good friend, several women from my church group, my husband's brothers, a cousin I was close to - it attack another cousin's son when he was a child and he spent years in torture.  But it never came near my immediate family.  Both my parents died young (40 and 56) but from different causes.  My brother drowned. 

Then this year cancer hit our family with a vengence.  It isn't someone else - its here - its us.  And it doesn't just hit the person inflicted with the disease and the torture of treatments - it hits the whole family.  It's a terrible thing. 

Thank God for the doctors and nurses, technicians, scientists fighting cancer.  Thank God for the support groups - for Terry Fos and those who continue his battle by supporting his cause.  People are being saved now in cases that would have been hopeless just a decade ago. 

Keep up the fight.  We're beating it back.

Hey! Stop pushing! This is My Post! Hey...Oh ALL RIGHT! YOU talk to him then.

Hi, Humanity! This is Cancer. We've know each other for a long time. You've called me a lot of names, but that was befrore you knew who I was. Like all living things, including you, humanity, I want to survive and sometimes, like you I get a little out of control.

When I get a little crazy, I kill some people. I kill a lot fewer than you do when crazy, by putting bullets in people.

End yer hostiliy, my fellow living entity,  die, and let die.

(Incidently, I lost a bout with that stupidly happy genius wannabe...took 'em three surgeries, though --

that was 20 years ago -- says it makes him enjoy his old age a LOT better...woulda thunk?

(Sniff!) They havn't named a SIGN after you, have they...

Regards,

CANCER

Great Letter !

Cancer affects too many people, it needs to be cured !

We are fighting back.  My mother has lymphoma, which was caught at a very advanced stage in 2004...and she is still here due to some very aggressive treatment and a great Oncology department at Henderson Hospital in Hamilton.

Of course, it's not always possible to keep it at bay.  My mother-in-law was diagnosed in 2006, and despite aggressive treatment that at one point we thought had cured her, died later that year.

We continue to fund research.  We continue to tell people to get checkups.  We need to keep doing these things, to make sure people who might be cured, or at least have a chance at a longer, fulfilling life, get that chance.

So yes, I hate cancer, but I'm more greatful to those who are fighting against it on our behalf.  If it weren't for the great people at Henderson, my kids would not have a grandmother.