Cancer Stories

Cancer seems to be everywhere lately. The newspaper, the Internet, TV, and there are frequent news stories about preventions and cures. Even if you hid under a rock, the topic simply cannot be avoided.

The news stories always seem to tease the possibility of a new breakthrough. Unfortunately, the big break I am waiting for (AKA The CURE), always seems tantalizingly out of our grasp.

There are numerous reports on new drugs, or old drugs used in new ways, or new and old drugs combined in creative formulas. The struggle is in the fine print of these discoveries. The number of people affected in the studies always seems very small, and somewhere in the article or story this line surfaces, "Several more years of study will be required."

I am waiting for the day that I open the newspaper and on my way to the NY Times crossword puzzle, I skim the heading that says, "Get down to your local oncologist right away because The CURE is ready and waiting!"

Obviously I'm slightly exaggerating, and it is very true that great advances have been made. Over twenty years ago my grandma was diagnosed with (and later died from) lung cancer. Her tumor was only the size of a quarter. Clearly, that diagnosis would not be the fatal sentence that it was so many years ago. Millions of people are living proof of today's modern medicine... But, I have to be brutally honest, it is just not enough... I want more.

I want him to be cured.

I want to be able to say, "Bill HAD cancer, but it's gone now."