The Reading Room: "A Place Where Cancer is the Norm"

jakesman said:

Also
Old article, but I think just the title ("Cancer is no longer a death sentence") might be uplifting for some of you.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17760785/

Trust Me.
Hello Jakesman:

I'm not sure I understand your post.

The article I posted (and you refer to as an "old article") appeared today (October 25, 2009) in the New York Times. I posted the piece in an ongoing good-faith effort to share the latest colon cancer (and general cancer) information available online to people on this board who need information and reassurance. I would hate to think that colon cancer patients would ever hesitate to post links here because you (or others) might dismiss their efforts as "old news."

Are you referring to an earlier post?

Certainly the idea that cancer is now a chronic disease, rather than a death sentence, is not a new idea. It is a hopeful concept and is one that is echoed in other scholarly and popular articles. And, it deserves to repeated over and over and over---from the rooftops, in fact.

I know from your earlier posts on this board that you say you are a young person facing the prospect of this awful disease:

"September 17, 2009 - 6:37pm
Hey best community I've ever seen on the internet,

I'm 17 but I'm preparing to be diagnosed w/ some form of colon cancer. I got a FOBT kit today, but haven't gotten a colonoscopy yet. I've seen dark blood in my stool since last week, and have had abdominal discomfort so I'm preparing for the worst. I'm praying it'll be diagnosed "early," but who knows.

Anything I should know? This is a frightening experience, but from the threads I've been reading, it looks like it's not that hard to beat."

I hope you are well. It is awful to face cancer as a young person and I hope that you were not diagnosed with colon cancer.

You are wrong, though, in saying that colon cancer is "not that hard to beat." Trust me.

Hatshepsut