Cancerous Invasion -- Support Relay for Life

The fight against cancer has always been important to me. Several members of both my family and that of my husband have been diagnosed and killed by cancer in its various forms.

I learned about lung cancer when I was 5. My grandfather died of it 2 years later. As I grew up, I learned the hard way about many of the various types of cancer as those I loved were diagnosed and struggled with them. A cousin died of an inoperable brain tumor. A good friend's older brother was bested by leukemia. Those are only the starters. I could needlessly list several more.

Programs like Relay for Life are essential to improving the quality of life for cancer patients and their loved ones. Through these programs research has been conducted and treatments developed that saved my aunt from breast cancer years ago. And, the treatments are only getting better.

Cancer has recently played yet another unfortunate role in my life.

I am a teacher. During the past month, I have been to the funerals of two of my former students. They were both still teenagers. One had leukemia, the other brain tumors. Both had been treated, successfully it had seemed, and then gone into remission only to have the disease come back with a vengence. To this day the count of my students I have seen buried is 7. I have been teaching for less than 10. It really makes one think.

An even more difficult issue deals with my family. Between funerals for students, my father was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. It was caused by smoking for more than 30 years. Thanks to treatments and technology that have improved greatly since my grandfather's time, my father's oncologist feels sure that he can be successfully treated with radiation and chemotharapy. That process in itself will not be pleasant, but it is a better prognosis than surgery or ....

Support Relay for Life or similar programs. Everyday people need you. This isn't a celebrity benefit, and you won't have some great recognition for contributing. But, every time you hear about a cancer success story, remember that you helped that happen.