Cancer Sucks

Big Daddy's prostate cancer has metastasized. Big Daddy is my grandfather. We celebrated his 90th birthday last month. He had prostate cancer many years ago, fought it, and beat it. It returned to his prostate last year, and now it has spread to his bones.

Once cancer spreads beyond the site of origin, it cannot be "cured". But in many cases it can be "managed" as a chronic illness. Bone mets are not fatal, but they are painful, and increase the risk of a fracture. Please keep Big Daddy in your thoughts and prayers as he fights this cancer once again.

Cancer took my father's life in 1993 when he was just 57. Cancer has affected other family members and friends. I work in Radiation Oncology and deal with it every day. Knowing more about it makes it no less upsetting when it happens to one of your own. So many sad stories cross my desk in the medical charts I work on. Babies and little kids with tumors (so brave, many of them), palliative treatments for men and women younger than I am, seeing the same folks return again and again as the cancer migrates through their bodies, seeing the worried faces of spouses, watching someone deteriorate each day, or just seeing how distressingly large a tumor is on a CT scan.

No doubt about it. Cancer just sucks.