The Cancer Card

I finished a book not too long ago, of which I won't mention the title as some of my devoted readers may want to borrow it and I would hate to ruin anything for them. However, I feel that I must comment on the book regardless.

One of the main characters had cancer... bone, breast, lung... I can't remember and it doesn't it really matter. As soon as I read the words I rolled my eyes and throught "here we go, some author is going to try to portray what it is like to watch someone battle cancer"... mind you, I watched that very scenario play out in my life and I am no closer to being able to tell you what it is like then any jane 'cancer free life' doe roaming the streets. It was my life... not mom has cancer and this is how my life goes... it's just my life... how can I describe what it is like if I don't have anything to compare it to... now if my twin grew up with a mom that didn't have cancer... maybe combined we could fill you in... However, we would have a whole other set of issues to discuss with you (separated at birth, abandonment issues, mistrust of everyone who lied to us, ect...) so the whole cancer/no cancer thing probably wouldn't rank very high on the problem chart.

I digress...

I figured the storyline would go something like this: character falls ill, sees the doctor, cancer, treatments, remains upbeat and attractive, does all the things that wanted to do but didn't: sky dive, scuba dive, high dive (thought I was onto something with the diving...). You get the idea... live because you are dying mentality...

I kept reading (because once I start... it has to be downright horrendously awful, 'put me to sleep while I am jumping on a pogo stick' boring for me to stop)... and to my surprise it wasn't half bad. The author wasn't far off base... the treatments... the feelings of family and friends.... the physical changes and my all time fave... the lack of the "live because you are dying" experience... Don't get me wrong the character did certain things... letters, tapes, speechs but all from the comfort of the bed. What was absent was the "oh, I am dying anytime from now until 3 months from now... I am going to travel, sky dive, bungee jump, ect... All things that someone who is quite literally dying with cancer couldn't possibly do...

This leads me to believe the author has been through this oh so enlightening experience.

Then I read another book (yes, I am on a kick lately) and surprise surprise... one of the characters has cancer. I think well heck, the last book I read surprised me by pr Only this time... the character ran and jumped from docks into the cold water, rode bicycles through the mountains of the landscape and lets be civil about it... had "fun" with the girl next door. To this I say "yeah, right". This is exactly what I was expecting from the other book. However, even better than just the idiotic 'I can do anything I want even though I have cancer' attitude... the main character was told of a high risk, seldom suceessful treatment which originally he opted out of but then after meeting the aforementioned girl next door, surprise surprise, he decides to go for it. And well, what do you know, it works. How hunky dory for them.

Maybe I am missing something... is there a form of cancer that can kill you in 3 months but despite that, you can run around like you are the healthiest you have ever been? I submit that there isn't... I haven't seen it and unfortunately, I have seen a lot of people battle and/or die from cancer.

I wish I knew where I was going with this... I really don't. I just don't see that this stuff happens in real life. If that were so, my mom and I would have gone to a spa weekend getaway together, traveled to Texas to see the blue bonnets again, shopped on 5th Avenue. Heck, mom and I weren't even able to finish redoing her photo albums like we wanted. Maybe I just never accepted that she was going to die so I didn't think of doing these things.