cancer

As you may have noticed I have added a fight cancer badge to my blog. I came across another blog of another young widow who had one on hers and if you want one of your own you can find them here: acswebbadge.org

They state at the site that you should do one of these things if you put a badge up on your site:

What does it mean to say “I Fight Cancer”? When you display an “I Fight Cancer” badge on your blog, you commit to one or more of the following: -Write a blog entry on your experience with cancer-Invite 5 bloggers to display the badge-Talk to your friends and family about getting screened for cancer-Wear a matching American Cancer Society wrist band-Get involved in local American Cancer Society events and programs, like Relay For Life or Making Strides Against Breast Cancer.-Or, make a donation.

I am choosing to do the first one-- I do a bunch of the others as well but I don't think I have ever spoken directly of cancer here before so I am going to try

Cancer

cancer seems like it has always been a part of my life. I remember when I was very little being told my grandfather had died of it at a very young age. In third grade my grandma was diagnosed with throat cancer and lived for three miserable years with it. My uncle had a form of it as a late stage development of HIV. All of these people. All of this suffering. Yet I still did not know what an impact cancer would have on me

Cancer is my job. It is my livelihood. If there weren't people with cancer I would be unemployed. If research was not needed my skill set would have no value. Yet what I wouldn't-or any one that I work with - wouldn't give to be unemployed. I work at one of the top cancer institutes in the country. Just the other day a friend said to me, "I don't know how you can work there- I was there for 10 minutes and couldn't look around at the sadness that exists behind those doors." But why I work there is for the reminder that people can actually live with this disease. That even with my small part of the whole we are helping to make sure more and more people live with this fricking disease.

Too bad when it mattered most it couldn't help me. I lost my John to 4 months of colon cancer. 4 months of living, breathing, feeling the havoc this disease wreaked on his and my life. 4 months of knowing that as long as i live i will always be trying to make sure no one went through what we did. 4 months of knowing that cancer is just a disease- it is not the person. it is not what makes and comprises a person- it is so limited.

one of my friends had sent this poem to me and i believe it is so true:

Cancer is so limited that:
It cannot cripple love
It cannot shatter hope
It cannot corrode faith
It cannot destroy peace
It cannot kill friendship
It cannot suppress memories
It cannot silence courage
It cannot invade the soul
It cannot steal eternal life
It cannot conquer the spirit