It happened again. I read someone’s status message on Facebook that talked about people having a thousand wishes.
All of us have a thousand wishes. To be thinner, to be bigger, have more money, have a cool car, a day off, a new phone, etc. A cancer patient only has one wish, to kick cancer’s ass. I know that 97% of you won’t post this as your status, but my friends will be the 3% that do. In honor of someone who died, is fighting cancer or even had cancer, post this for at least one hour.
I wrote a snarky comment about someone I know who has cancer—he has a second wish, which is to get rid of a bunch of squirrels that have invaded an apartment building’s walls. Honestly, though, this version of “one wish” bothers me a lot more than the military wishing to come home, probably because it’s more personal.
I know a lot of people who have cancer, have survived cancer, have died from cancer and I’m sure a lot of people I know now will develop cancer. (Sad, but probably true.) One thing I can absolutely guarantee: they have not all narrowed their lives down to the single wish of kicking cancer’s ass.
Surgery is rough. Radiation is tough. Chemotherapy suuuuucks. That’s what I’m assuming—I know it doesn’t sound pleasant. But between cancer treatments, you know what those people do? They don’t just sit at home and wish their cancer would go away. No, they leave the hospital and they live. I imagine they appreciate life more than most of us because they’ve been given a clock, a stopwatch, a fuse that says, “You’ve got a limited amount of time left.” They can be cured or go into remission—they can kick cancer’s ass—but if that wish isn’t granted, the clock is ticking.
But to quote Monty Python, “I’m not dead yet!” The clock hasn’t stopped ticking. They still have opportunities to go out and enjoy life. They still have time to make wishes, achieve them, make more wishes, achieve them (things like growing hair during chemo and radiation may be out of their reach) and the cycle continues until they die. The same thing goes for all of us, really. We can have the same wishes and dreams—we just don’t have the same predetermined finish line.
So if any of you reading this are cancer sufferers, cancer survivors or cancer casualties (if it’s the last one, you probably have some explaining to do), I wish you the best. I hope you can kick cancer’s ass. I also hope you’ve made many more wishes that can be granted while you’re doing it. (Even people with cancer can multitask, right?)
And to quote something that’s not from Monty Python, here’s a message from The Daily Show: “**** You, Cancer.”
It bothered me as well when I read the one wish..
The cancer treatment is tough. Having no hair, no eyebrows or eyelashes makes you look less than pretty… needles as big as straws injected into your stomach.. and flat lining because your body rejected the chemo.. etc.
It was another challenge (not a battle) in my life, but not the first and not the toughest (worst).
Life is loving (not winning the war)! I’m honored by those who care for me and others.
My friends will not be the ones posting this in their status, they will be the ones who call, text, write, wave, laugh, cry or smile with me when I am close or far away.
Yes, I love Monty Python, “I’m not dead yet!”
It happened to me again too.. this was reposted and I had to respond “a cancer patient has more than one wish and sometimes kicking cancer’s ass isn’t even their first wish.. the intent of this statement is kind but the wording isn’t so good….
my friend’s response ” well, correct it and I’ll post the corrected version”
.. do I really want to answer this one back?
Do it. I wrote a new version that you can use or edit to your heart’s desire, but let your friend know that if you’ve got cancer, there’s still a lot more to life.