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I guess people not having a personal stake in this cancer subject will never read this but I need to say something about things people say thinking they are helping in some way.
I have to bite my tongue whenever I hear someone say any of the usual statements like, "If you get cancer, prostate cancer is the best one to get since it is the easiest to cure." Who started this idiotic rumor? I am sure ANY cancer sucks no matter what type you are unfortunate enough to get. Curable? Where in the cancer world did they get that one? We can treat it, manage it, and live with it, but very few are lucky enough to ever be "cured" of it. It is a sneaky, underhanded, sadistic disease, and calling it anything else is giving false hope.
I read the accounts of victims on this site and can't miss the personal tragedy this disease causes all of us. I doubt any of us would agree that we got a break in getting this particular form of cancer. I grieve for all of my fellow victims who have to endure this disease and its treatments. It is not a disease that you go through and leave behind in memories. It never leaves you and is always in the back of your mind. Maybe some are able to ignore it and those are the lucky ones - but speaking for myself and probably many others, it is a daily companion that seems unshakable.
I don't know of anything one can say to make it better other than a simple "Sorry, I wish it weren't so!" or as Red Green says on his show, "We are all in this together, we are pulling for you." Jon
Jon R., thanks for bringing this up. I cannot get this out of my head. It was said to me by a gentleman at my church on my first return to church after my surgery. He was one of the only people I opened up to about my disease. I started to well up in tears right there in the fellowship hall. He assured me I could talk to him any time. Needless to say that won't happen now.
