This won't mean much to me but I learnt something today. Because we have much better cancer treatments, patients who presented with cancer a few years ago, say 30, didn't survive long enough to develop a second kind of cancer. Now they do.
I learnt this because I went with my father to see his oncologist. My dad was diagnosed with skin cancer in 1991, prostate cancer in 1997 and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2006. Today be bad to take a diagnosis of an aggressive secondary tumour in the liver with others in various bones, the primary being in a lung.
He's been through a lot already, was widowed in 2008 just short of 58 years of marriage and has run out of chances, I'm afraid. He's realistic enough to know that an Arsenal season ticket isn't a sound investment. He probably won't get to see his only great granddaughter go to school. He's not going to chase expensive and pointless quack treatments. He is accepting his limited future with tears and dignity.
I always knew life wasn't fair. Sometimes it just sucks too much.
My sympathy and I wish you both strength. Life isn't fair.
ReplyDeleteMy father died too young from cancer. He fought it to the end, but with humour, wisdom and calmness and always thinking of us more than himself. I miss him still.
Thank you for the kind comments.
ReplyDeleteMy dad still has his sense of humour but it was a bombshell to learn he has months left. He's a man so full of life, that's why I said life isn't fair. I have kids in my classes tell me it isn't fair when they get caught chewing or texting on their mobiles. I hope they never get to find out what unfair in life really means.