The Big C

In today's news: "Cancer deaths in the United States have dropped for a second straight year, confirming that a corner has been turned in the war on cancer. " http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070117/ap_on_he_me/cancer_deaths


It definitely doesn't feel that way in my life. Two of the people closest to me are dealing with cancer right now. My dad, soon to be 86, has advanced lung cancer. My beautiful, wonderful, amazing close friend Nancy has been dealing with metastatic breast cancer for the past year and a half. I'm so glad that she started blogging about her experience. I don't know anyone who can write about wretched chemo and CT scans and the painfully exotic language of oncology with more honesty, anger, humor and full-blown insight than she does.

http://nredwine.blogspot.com/

As I read her blog this morning, I was pulled back into my childhood, a time when the word cancer wasn't even said aloud. Aunt Viv "wasted away." The closest the grown-ups came was referring to someone having "The Big C." When my mother first told me about my father's condition, she said, "The other shoe has dropped." My emotionally fragile Aunt Molly was never even told what her "sickness" was and my mother -- her sister -- frequently wonders if "not knowing" allowed her to work and socialize until she died. I don't think so. I just don't believe that innocence is any kind of bliss.

I have been around cancer a lot recently--talking on the phone to my parents, accompanying Nancy on doctor visits. But still. Still, sometimes when I say the word Cancer, I feel it heavy and uncomfortable in my mouth, like a naughty phrase that I let slip out.
Maybe I need to say it more often -- cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer -- in the mistaken hope that I can make it be just another word.