Four Words Change Everything

American Thinker.com ^ | November 28, 2020 | Bill Hansmann

[Kaslin]

2020 has been quite a year. Say what you will about the crash of ’29 or the unrest of ’68, this year’s COVID-19 pandemic and economic shutdown, along with an election campaign of revolting day-to-day events and a questionable outcome take the cake. Or would it be more fitting to say that 2020 trumps any previous annum in which we were not at war. War trumps everything else when it comes to unhappy years, so let’s be thankful that Trump never played that trump card.

As bad as the year has been, I often joked that for me, 2020 was a vast improvement over 2019. I joked that it would be a fine year to graduate from optometry school; what better than to be in the class of 2020, a perfect year for perfect vision? My son and daughter-in-law were expecting a baby, a son to be named Brock, who would be a blessed little brother to Carson, a fine young man, and to Annabelle, my wunderkind granddaughter who is the apple of my eye. And most notably, in 2020, I was not being treated for cancer.

2019 presented me with a huge personal challenge. I was diagnosed with throat cancer, a particularly nasty disease from the wide spectrum of horrors known as malignancy. My oncologist, a brilliant doctor and not one to mince words, told me that the treatment for my disease was the worst regimen that any cancer patient would endure. He told me that the cure rate was high, but that it would be a tough road.

[Kaslin]

My SIL had Breast cancer, her Breast was removed and naturally she thought everything was ok.
Unfortunately the cancer had moved to her brain, and she died of Brain Cancer.

That was 20 years ago. My brother died in 2014 of Dementia. They had no children.

[sharpee]

I understand your loss.
I lost my wife in March of 2001 to breast cancer. I still hear her voice.
I had a zoom call with my grown kids on Thursday. They are wonderful caring capable children. I wish Lynn could have been their.

[henkster]

My wife fought breast cancer in 1995. She went through surgeries, chemo, radiation and a stem cell transplant. It was a terrible fight but she won.

And then in 2016 she was diagnosed with gastric cancer. The kind that had a less than 20% survival rate. It had already spread and the doctors at MD Anderson didn’t know how or why it was metasisizing the way it was. I knew then she wasn’t making it into the 20% group.

She fought just as hard as she had 22 hears earlier but after two years, she lost the fight.

It wasn’t fair that she beat one and then got hit with another.

[Fiji Hill]

My SIL had Breast cancer, her Breast was removed and naturally she thought everything was ok. Unfortunately the cancer had moved to her brain, and she died of Brain Cancer.

Same thing happened to mine--breast cancer that metastasized to the brain. She was an athlete who was very careful about what she ate, yet it got her at a young age.

[Pollard]

My sister died from throat cancer at the age of 57. My mom’s health was already pretty bad and she went downhill fast from then on. My dad pretty much went into a depression after that and died on the 6th anniversary of my mom’s death. He also became a believer in assisted suicide after watching my sister suffer the last few months. She had already had part of her throat cut out and then later, a good portion of one side of her jaw.

[gcparent]

A lot if this cancer is genetic and not due to what you ate.