{{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}...Re: What wombat said!...and then some more! Re: Shocking Words From An Oncologist's Mouth!

I think I told you I watched my grandmother die of colon cancer... the cancer didn't kill her. At 83 (just about 30 years from now for me...), her body just couldn't handle the treatments. It took a year to die.

I loved her.

I also remember my friend Ann who contracted Breast Cancer at age 39. Long family history of it. It was the fast kind. She had one breast cut off, then the oncologist recommended she go ahead and have the other one lopped off since it would only be a matter of time before the cancer spread there.

Imagine a beautiful, young. sexy, smiling brown eyed brunette with five children being told "do this or die." Those fake bras don't hide the surgery scars...

She opted for chemo and experimental drugs. I was one of the few friends she let in her inner circle- who held the bowl while she vomited every day, who cleaned her house and brought dinners over to the family because she was too weak to do it, who watched her children, taught hers and mine, and let them stay at my house while she was in the hospital during treatments. She let see her without her wig.

I wore a hat to church so she wouldn't be the only one wearing one, as did all of the ladies in the inner circle. I told her she was pretty and painted her fingernails to give her a little dignity when she looked like a skeleton and death itself. I prayed for her and cried with her when her youngest boy- 5 years old- got sick with the flu and had to stay at somebody else's house, because Ann's white count was so low that she didn't have the immunities to fight the flu off. Every afternoon after school there was somebody at her house praying or reading healing scriptures with Ann. Let me tell you, she memorized and claimed a lot of scriptures over that 18 month period.

She couldn't eat much. Nothing would stay down. But she tried everything. She told us girlfriends she'd eat a bite in hopes she would get a minute of nutrition before she puked it up.

She's still alive, y'all. She doesn't put up with any nonsense, let me tell you. Cancer survivors are STRONG. Her husband is strong, too. He never left her. A lot of men do leave their wives when they get cancer. They don't want to touch their wives. I guess they think they might get cooties. Cancer separates the men from the boys.

More recently, a friend of mine with ten children was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I told her about the Incurables Program. She chose to go medical. She was gone in six months. Although it would be unfair to say she would have been saved by the IP, I wish she would have tried it.

I'm sure many of us have stories to tell of loved ones who have endured the worst things ever at the hands of "experts."

Wings