And so it’s not working. That’s what the scans are telling you for a hundred percent sure. That’s also what you should have known from the very get go by the signs your body was giving you. The signs were, among other things, your increased pain, your declining appetite, and the little voice in the back of your head. Of course you suppressed it, who wants to acknowledge that their cancer treatment isn’t working a single moment earlier than they have to?

Inevitably, unfortunately, and indubitably this is bound to happen to a large number of cancer patients. Sometimes the treatment selected by you and your doctor is just the wrong one for you. There can be no blame in this; there is no magical cure all for any of the cancers. None have a hundred percent cure rate.

So what happens next? Next you sit in your doctor’s office trying to pay attention to what they have to say, but you are only really able to process about fifty percent. You have other things to think about, like that you have to share this news, and the sharing is never fun. In the end you SHOULD end up taking home literature so that you can consider your options when you’ve reached a calm frame of mind. In many cases you don’t, instead you feel the best thing to do is jump quickly into a new treatment intending to keep the cancer on the run. (Note that the latter is not my recommended course of action.)

Then the reality sets in. This is the time when the comfortable denial wears off and the depressing truth settles in. You begin to dwell on all that wasted time. You contemplate all the time that you suffered with no material gain. Slowly it drags you down, like a quicksand to your hope. Your thoughts wander to the ‘what if’s’ of the disease. Your mind opens to the possibility that cure may not be in your future. You start to fold. You start treatment.

The treatment is grueling. You think of the last time and how you thought it couldn’t be any worse. You thank God for correcting you and ask him to help you. You don’t realize it, but he does. His help comes in the form of his children, your family and friends. They help you, care for you, comfort you and entertain you. With out them you would have said “Take me cancer, I’ve had enough.”

But you don’t, you can’t, who could let down such great people. You think that life isn’t so much breathing as it is the people that surround you everyday with friendship and love. One day you realize that the fight is back in you. The treatment, though still a punishment in many ways, becomes your goal. You have a purpose.

With your purpose you place one foot in front of the other, that goal, that cure you want so much, tantalizingly playing near the horizon. And just the sight of it, the possibility of reaching it, is all you need to carry on. Who could ask for more? How could you ever have known just how great your life was if you hadn’t had this disease? You would never have known how strong you and your family were. Never would you have dreamed that your friends would go to such lengths for you. Certainly never would you have appreciated, as you do now, every single moment given to you by God on this earth.

Since this was written the patient has passed.