Cancer: The Pathological Demon

Within a span of weeks, another loss has occurred. This time our condolences go to a good friend of ours as he too lost his Grandpa to cancer.

As dictionary.com defines cancer:

1. Pathology.

a. malignant and invasive growth or tumor, especially originating in epithelium, tending to recur after excision and to metastasize to other sites.

b. any disease characterized by such growths.

2. any evil condition or thing that spreads destructively; blight.

I find it interesting that it uses the adjective "evil". It is indeed evil. It has taken so many lives, and sometimes I find it so hard to accept. As a wife of a physician, and working in the medical field, you hear all kinds of stories (no names or identifying information is ever shared aka HIPAA) about cancer and it's horrible repercussions. Families are never the same and many of them struggle to gain acceptance of this pathological demon. This demon shreds my heart to pieces when the death takes away a parent, or when it involves a child.

About 10 years ago, my Grandpa was diagnosed with prostate cancer, though, it wasn't that, that took his life almost 7 years ago; instead, it was a simple fall. But, that doesn't mean that cancer has never affected my family or I. In fact, stomach cancer took my "Uncle" (actually my step-grandfather), and it also took my life of my Great Uncle, that was a span of a year. Then, there was my friend who recently passed away, he fought long and hard, but this demon, took what was supposed to be the best years of his life.

Today, on the way to getting the hubby to work, we saw an SUV with two girls in the car heading toward in the same direction and the license plate holder was representing JABSOM (John A. Burns School of Medicine). My husband chuckled. Medical school and residency, more so, is still fresh in our minds. Entering medical school is a fun time, your ego is at it's all time high you are one step to becoming a doctor, but not many realize how emotionally taxing med school and residency are; many do not finish both of them without shedding a tear, and if you do/did, well good for you.

When my husband was going through his first two years of non-clinical med school, he was a type of person that couldn't put himself in other another persons shoes. We fought about his lack of empathy, but you know, God would have it. The last two years was a different story, he became a different person, he learned to have empathy for others. He even actually became a softer person than me. It could be the sleep deprivation from long nights on call, or just he became a new person on his own, either way, he has empathy for his patients and their families. It still hurts him when he finds out his patients have gained custody of the demon (cancer) or when his patients pass away.

I'll end this.

Life is hard, pray harder. (Well said.)