I hate cancer

I am getting really fed up with cancer.

That doesn't mean that I once tolerated it, but I'm getting fed up with it more than usual.

I guess, the bottom line is I hate cancer. Before we go any further, I feel the need to emphasize what I mean by the word "hate."

Two of the most misused words in the English language are hate and love. For example, when describing a bad meal, somebody may say that they "really hated that spaghetti."

I remember saying that a lot as a boy. My mom cooked it a lot, and everybody in my family enjoyed it but me. So, to persuade her not to make it, I would often emphasize how much I hated spaghetti.

Obviously, I didn't have a good understanding of what hate really means. My trusty dictionary defines hate as regarding something "with extreme aversion: an extreme feeling of dislike or animosity."

The key word in that definition is "extreme." When our emotions are pushed to the extreme, we experience feelings from the depths of our heart. Just when we think our emotions can't run any deeper, we will experience a situation that touches us in places we didn't know existed.

I think this applies to my feelings toward cancer.

With that in mind, when I say I hate cancer, I mean that I HATE cancer.

I hate watching the work of this disease and the damage it has done. This disease is so firmly entrenched in our society that there isn't one person reading this who hasn't been impacted by it.

Dear reader, if you haven't suffered personally from this illness, then I'm sure you've had a family member or a friend or a co-worker or somebody else who has suffered from it.

Whether directly or indirectly, cancer's wrath has touched us all.

Despite its impact on our culture, I sometimes feel the disease doesn't get enough attention. Yes, I understand that tens of millions of dollars each year are spent on research, but it seems like other diseases get more publicity.

An example of this is AIDS. I know this is going to be politically incorrect, but it often appears that this disease gets spotlighted a lot more than cancer even though it impacts fewer people here in the United States.

Obviously, I am not trying to minimize that illness. AIDS is a devastating illness, and its victims should be treated with the same love and care as cancer sufferers. Funding for aggressive research to find a cure for it is important.

However, the disease is a lot less mysterious than cancer. I won't go into graphic detail, but AIDS is preventable if people use good judgment and take certain precautions. The bottom line is AIDS is a lot more controllable than cancer.

True, some forms of cancer can also be prevented through good judgment and taking precautions, but there are other forms of cancer that appear to materialize out of nowhere.

In my life, I have known people who have lived robust and healthy lives only to be stricken. They exercised regularly, ate the right foods, and did not smoke, but could not escape cancer's wrath.

So, what do we make out of all this?

I really don't know. All we can do is live each day to its fullest. When presented with the opportunity to help somebody with the disease, take advantage of that opportunity.

We all should help our neighbors carry their load. Sometimes just telling a cancer sufferer that you love them helps them in numerous ways.

So, why not do it?