It's funny the random things you remember from your past. I was thinking the other day of a guy I went to high school with, who told us one day that, seeing as his uncle and grandpa both died of cancer, there was no doubt in his mind that he would too. 'He's fishing for sympathy', I scribbled furiously to a friend, 'What a whiner'. I'm not nearly as judgmental in adulthood, but some things don't change: I still don't like that kind of negative thinking. Yeah, my dad, grandparents and aunts died of cancer, but so what? I'm not them. What reminded me of that story was this one, about Shirley McQueen, who's seen 14 relatives -- including all of the women in her family -- die of breast cancer. She says she feels like she's 'standing in the middle of the M25 waiting for a lorry to hit her', and with those odds, I don't blame her. But I truly believe in the power of positive thinking, and if I were in a similar situation, I hope with every fiber of my being that I can muster up enough faith to steadfastly ascertain that cancer will not, under any circumstances, be the end of me, like I've seen so many brave survivors do. I think without that sort of hope, we're just a bunch of lost souls, floundering, preparing for death and not looking towards the future.
How have you found hope in your battle with cancer?
