We are like dogs, cats, cows, rats. . . What separates us from them and from the remaining matches against mammals is negligible. To have the same diseases. Rats spread plague like us, but we are just as contagious as them. And the dogs get diabetes, like we do, and get cancer, like us. And age, like us. And die, like us. Why then the biblical claim that man is the king of creation? Perhaps because only man has developed spoken language, the words, wherein lies its prodigious ability to lie.
In another universe I probably came out OK, ended up with mad novias and jobs and a sea of love in which to swim, but in this world I had a brother who was dying of cancer and a long dark patch of life like a mile of black ice waiting for me up ahead.
Both of my grandmothers were diagnosed with breast cancer - one is a survivor and one passed away.
Let's face it, life is a constant challenge. It's full of unexpected detours that no one but you can navigate.
Watch it. . . people who keep things inside them develop all sorts of disease. . . all that emotional gunk's got to find an outlet. Angry people develop cysts; stubborn people get arthritis; resentful people die of cancer.
If screenwriters have to kill off a female character, they love to give her cancer. We've seen so many great actresses go down to the Big C: Ali MacGraw, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Debra Winger, Susan Sarandon.
Every day, I am reminded that our life's journey is really about the people who touch us. When you die, it does not mean you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live. So live. Live! Fight like hell. And when you get too tired to fight, then lay down and rest and let somebody else fight for you.
I hope we find a cure for every major disease, because I'm tired of walking 5K. I'm pretty sure I don't have to sweat for cancer. I'll write a check.
When one of us dies of cancer, loses her mind, or commits suicide, we must not blame her for her inability to survive an ongoing political mechanism bent on the destruction of that human being. Sanity remains defined simply by the ability to cope with insane conditions.
But the doctors in the past, as the review of the evidence showed, branded Jenner, Semmelweis, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. , Pasteur, Lister, Koch and Keen as charlatans. . . Napoleon said that war is too important to be left to the generals. We go on the assumption in the Senate that foreign relations are too important to be left to the diplomats. . . this question (on a novel cancer cure) is too important to leave purely to doctors.
I lost my mother two years ago to cancer. But the greatest gift she gave to me was showing me how to be a wonderful and loving mom to my two sons, even now that they are grown men.
Among the cancers devouring the American body politic, one of the most virulent involves liberals who play the race card as carelessly as children playing 52 Pickup.
For those of us who have been diagnosed with cancer, time is a precious commodity. The time and distance from the scientist's lab bench to the patient's bedside must be shortened.
The cancer in me became an awareness of the cancer that is everywhere. The cancer of cruelty, the cancer of carelessness, the cancer of greed.
War is utter damn nonsense, a vast cancer fed by lies and self seeking malignity on the part of those who don't do the fighting.
Even now, it's still hard for him to say it. I don't blame him. It's an icky word. Why couldn't whoever was in charge of naming things call cancer 'sugar' and sugar, 'cancer'? People might not eat so much of the stuff then. And it's so much more pleasant to die of sugar.
If you don't have cancer, cherish life. If you do, cherish it even more
Cigarettes don't kill people - cancer kills people.
Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre is a genuine project and a living proof of generosity of the people of Pakistan.
One of the pitfalls about writing about illness is that it is very easy to imagine people with cancer as either these wise-beyond-their-years creatures or these sad-eyed tragic people. And the truth is, people living with cancer are very much like people who are not living with cancer. They're every bit as funny and complex and diverse as anyone else.