What I quickly learned after my diagnosis is that the world of a cancer patient has many parts and a good deal of uncertainty.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I am not a doctor or a scientist, but merely a passionate layperson, a filter, a messenger. I spoke with so many patients who are living normal, happy, fulfilled lives, and their enthusiasm and great quality of life convinced me that you can indeed live with cancer.
Cancer is a collection of many diseases with common principles, and each disease will have to be understood and more effectively controlled on its own terms.
So many of us have friends or family who have battled cancer, and we know how important it is to find a cure.
Although the elusive 'cure' may be a distant dream, understanding the true nature of cancer will enable it to be better controlled and less menacing.
There are lots of dimensions to being a cancer patient. The overwhelming one is that it takes over your life.
It's unconscionable that cancer patients get the wrong diagnosis 30 percent of the time and that it takes so long to treat them with appropriate drugs for their cancer.
When you have a diagnosis of cancer, or any serious illness, your choices are basically to be passive and kind of accept whatever is offered you, or to be active and to learn about your disease, and understand your options, and be an active partner with your doctor. That's the course I took with all three of my cancers.
Once you have a disease like cancer, you look at life a bit differently. Some things that were important no longer seem as important as they were.
What I've learned from my own journey, and from my family's experience with cancer, is how important it is to stay positive and move forward. Not every day is going to be perfect; that's life. But staying positive is going to get you to the next day.
I wish I could never spend another second talking about cancer and all it does to everyone it surrounds, but unfortunately, that cannot be because of my life.
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