GIVE TO THE AMERICAN CANCER ASSOCIATION, STOP CANCER!

My story continues, as I write it, now at 18,743 words and growing.  I write as I feel and when I feel I can, I do different stories about different things. I do my blogs also here on politics, Trump, and my books and poems. As I move along I also deal with, my wife having cancer, and taking her to Doctors and Hospitals for chemo treatments.

I noticed some things maybe others would not, like, why is it when someone gets cancer or has it reoccur or return, people, disappear? I have found now in my life many times, I have had family members or friends dealing with cancer, and I wonder why do people who are family and friends disappear when it comes back?

I have watched now, cancer affect many people in my lifetime, it started way back in 1970  when my grandfather, on my mother’s side died of pancreatic cancer. he died in a Nursing home alone with strangers caring for him, sadly!

Then in 1971, I met a girl in High School, who was later diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and she fought it until she reached 60 years old and died recently. I would sit with her at a Hospital a few times while she awaited treatment, and keep her company.

Cancer seems to have chased me, and followed me closely, for in 1984 it took my real father, who I only got to meet twice in my life. He left behind two sons here in Connecticut and seven more children in New Jersey.

But Cancer does not seem to give up any more than the survivors of it and it keeps returning to haunt me. Cancer raised it’s head again in 1990 when it took my step-father who raised me, with lung cancer. Big smoker he was all his life and the sad part is, he left behind a wife and the 5 kids he raised and grandkids too.

If nothing else cancer is persistent, it would raise it’s head again in 1991 a year and one day after my step-father went down, my mother did too again lung cancer. Cancer hangs on I tell you and it punishes as it takes life.

I lived a short period of time without cancer showing its head to me, but it came back in 2006, hitting my second wife hard with breast cancer. It would take a fight to knock it back, between surgery to remove 29 lymph nodes from under one arm, and radiation and chemo treatments, I sat with her, until it went into remission for her.  We lived on and still do today actually, but cancer was not through with my life or those who were in my life.

2013, I went to see my Doctor at the West Haven Veteran’s Hospital and was asked about my family history of cancer by my Doctor. When I revealed all of the above she suggested I go through a survey of Veterans by the Hospital regarding cancer. I had to go through a Pet Scan for it. Two days later I received a call from my Doctor, I had to report to the Hospital to the Cancer Clinic, I had lung cancer.

I met with a Specialist there and was told they would remove a lobe and one-third of my right lung to get the cancer. I went in on September 4th, Labor Day here in America and the cancer was removed. They put five holes in me, to get the lobe and one third out. They found it was stage one and I was lucky, I recovered well, for on September 16th, 2013 I attended a ball game between the Red Sox and Yankees at Fenway Park with my wife, my sister and her boyfriend. I survived. Yet as I said cancer does not give up, it keeps trying to take people around me.

January 2016, cancer raised it’s head once more, it came back in my wife once more, this time it had progressed from breast cancer to bone cancer. During the same time, her first husband came down with cancer also. Cancer was closing in once more.

My wife, I take to treatments and hospitals still today, as cancer rages its war on her body. It’s has gone from breast cancer to bone cancer and come around back out to the tissue in her body. We had a port put in for chemo for her and I take her weekly to chemo for her treatments and she gets the fourth week off before she restarts once more. He hair is gone again but she is the bravest woman I know and she fights on. I sit through her chemo sessions, it takes sometimes five hours, sometimes four depending on if we see the Doctor of not on that day. Then there are the shots for the bone cancer they give her also. Each week is a fight to get her there on time cause she needs to be showered, cleaned and dressed and she is, a last, minute sal so to say, lol. But we do it.

I am due for a check-up for my cancer next month in September another scan, is due to see if mine has come back. I have no signs of it or symptoms so I should be fine, so far. Cancer never surrenders it seems it keeps coming.

Across the world researchers and Doctors of all kinds, are fighting to find cures for cancer, some they are making progress on, most they are not. The battle shall continue folks long after I am gone and my wife too, but I leave you with a request, do yourselves and I and all I love or have loved and give to fight cancer! It devastates, it destroys and it kills! GIVE TO THE AMERICAN CANCER ASSOCIATION, STOP CANCER!