These are the memories of my sister's cancer. What I now call the Cancer Warrior that strikes out at you without warning and without prejudice. How the Cancer Warrior appeared in our lives and left with my older sister.
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Cancer a word for years which wasn’t spoken in the home it’s been one of the biggest dirty little secrets in life and in everyone’s family. It’s treated like something to be a shamed of and for what. It’s not a disease that can be caught through sexual contact but yet it seems to hold the same scary power as an STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease).
Cancer has a willful power that we have all given it by keeping it locked in the closet. I’m not sure how this disease became such a highly secretive thing but it was and still somewhat is today. As much as we have learned about cancer and how people get it. People still want to hide it. Those who have been misfortune enough to be stricken with this almost always deadly disease choose to keep it safe and tucked away between their doctors and themselves. Not informing family and friends of what they are now going through, even though their family and friend will soon go through it with them.
What they haven’t realized is that cancer is a family disease affecting everyone not only them but everyone in their families and anyone that cares for them. It follows a path that no one can truly tell the outcome of it. It’s like a war against your body as it goes in and attacks everything within its reach raking havoc on as many organs in its path as possible. Its only mission to seek out and destroy which, it does a very good job at. The only problem with this is that it reaches out of body of its victim to their family members; although the person going through this painful disease would beg to differ with you. You the family the love ones the friends and associates are suffering too. As you sit and watch your love one suffers at the hands of this dreadful disease.
The only person I knew who had fought the toughest battle of his life and lost to it, gave me my first up close reality of the effects of some of the deadliest cancers.
Only a few years later cancer came home with my sister. She too was hit with the deadliest of the deadly cancers which ended her life 13 months later. Those thirteen months seemed like a life time. It’s hard to believe that it was that short of a time. As we were experiencing it and taking care of my sister it seem much longer than a mere 13 months. Thirteen months can you believe it in just thirteen months the older sister that I once knew was no longer with me. No longer would I be able to pick up the phone and call her. But I will always remember those last few months that we traveled in search of someone to cure this deadly disease from her.
We return home at the defeat of the powerful cancer warrior. Although we were still with faith that a miracle may happen for us and that this nightmare will end and my sister would still be with us. Doing what she loves most being a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister and gambling at the casinos.
But the warrior was strong and had years of experience in taking lives that young trainees as ourselves are unable to defeat this demon. Too many well kept secrets too many avenues that this master could take left us without a trace of a weapon to use in our defense against this warrior therefore leaving no good ending to this story.
So I’m wondering how this cancer has managed to live such a strong and prosper life for so many years without losing a battle to its enemy the human life. What really scares me is that it is probably something so simple that we just over looked it. Simply because it’s too simple to be true to have any real effect on the powerfulness of the Cancer Warrior.
I hope I’m wrong I hope its much more complex than that. But it makes me wonder because in this day and age with all our technology it seems there are so many more people dying from cancer today than ever before. It seems to strike an area at a time just like the great warrior that it is.
So the only defense I feel we really may have is to share our disease and knowledge of this disease with everyone and be not afraid of what people will think or how they will treat you, but know that we are all in this fight together because cancer doesn't discrimnate and it may just come home with to you.
None of us appear to be exempt from this disease. There's alot of stuff running through my family, as well as my husband's. All we can do is pray that it never lands on us or our daughter...but to bear whatever struggles we are given with God's grace. I wonder though sometimes about the billions of dollars that have been invested in cancer research. Where are the cures? Is medical science sitting on possible answers to these horrible illnesses because it would put the oncology community out of business? Thoughts to ponder. Great piece Barbara...Michelle
She never felt safe at home as a young girl, and didn't understand why when she finally escaped she wasn't safe in the big wide world either ...effectively jumping out of the frying pan into the fire!
