The America Cancer Society estimates that in 2006 as many as 564,830 Americans will die from cancer, second only to heart disease. In fact, nearly as many Americans will die from cancer in 2006 alone as those who died in all of America's wars combined. A total of 651,008 Americans died in battle from the American Revolution through the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War, according to the US Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration.
One in four Americans will be stricken with cancer at some point in life. And, cancer will touch the rest of us as well. Each American alive today has a nearly 100% chance of a close relative such as a mother, father, sister, brother, or grandparent, receiving a cancer diagnosis.
Many of us will experience cancer diagnoses with multiple realtives. My father received the diagnosis in 2001 when his doctor told him he had non-hodgkins lymphoma. He survived rather well under the strain of chemotherapy treatments. But, by early 2005, the cancer had begun to take its' toll on him. The years of living with cancer, his age (76), and my Mom's death on March 19th, 2005 proved to be too much burden. Dad died on July 12th, 2005. At the end I found myself celebrating for him that his suffering had ended. My other close experience with cancer was in December 2003 with Vicki's cancer diagnosis.
Cancer not only affects those with the disease, but everyone else who loves the person with the disease. It changes relationships, it changes plans, it changes hopes and dreams.
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