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“my neighbor was diagnosed just after Halloween. By Thanksgiving he was gone.
Brutal.”

Not trying to be calous but in a way I think that might have been a good thing.

I helplessly watched my mom suffer with cancer for months before she passed away in 1987.....after all these years it still seems so unfair. She was only 59.

Ditto that.

I had to watch my 18 y/o brother whither away over 11 months from Ewing Sarcoma. Once diagnosed, the doctors gave him 3 weeks to live but he fought it with guts, determination and faith. He had just graduated high school and accepted a football scholarship to UCLA. He went from 220 lbs. at his diagnosis to 95 lbs. when he finally succumbed to it.

It was the most devastating and heart wrenching thing I ever witnessed and still bothers me to this day 35 years later.

I don’t wish cancer upon anybody. Even the people I despise.

Ditto and ditto. My father was first diagnosed in 1965 with colon cancer, given less than 5 yrs. They didn't tell him, only my mother. She waited, with four little ones, for him to drop dead. In 1968 he had another bout and his doctor was shocked to see him alive. It made it's final return in 1983, he wound up with a colostomy bag for his remaining 2 years. He had chemo and radiation, neither of which he had in 1965 and '68. He, and we, were blessed with those extra 20 years.

My younger brother was diagnosed in January 2014, stage 4 colon cancer. Had a tumor the size of a stick of butter (per his doctor's description) removed. After chemo didn't stop it from spreading to his liver, he was sent to a 'specialist' in NYC, Lenox Hill Hospital, who had some magical surgery, can't recall the name of it, to help him. He opened him up, couldn't do anything and closed him back up. I knew before my brother woke up that nothing could be done and I could only dread for the moment he would hear it. (I was in PA, he lived in NJ). He was absolutely livid upon the news and just wanted out of that hospital fast. He had to recover from another surgery needlessly. I last saw him on Palm Sunday 2015, just a shadow of himself. He just kept saying if he could only gain 10 lbs. He started bleeding out toward the end of April through May and he was gone May 17th, 2015 at 56, a month before his birthday, with all of us at his hospital bedside. It was a horrible event but yet beautiful with all of us with him, he was a wonderful soul. My mother died the previous year in June and we could not tell her that he was ill with the same thing that took my father, she was just too frail to know and it was Michael's (my brother) wishes she not be told also.. Then my mother-in-law of over 40 years died 2 months after my brother.