Dear big C

Dear big C,

I don’t know if you are aware of it, but you are highly unpopular and I do not mean in the same way as, say, brussel sprouts are. I mean, seriously unpopular. Unpopular enough that, every day, people all over the world are spending hour after hour, week in, week out, trying to find your ultimate opponent. The one enemy of yours that will be able to stand before you and tear you to shreds. While you keep standing there, fighting off our weapons and allowing our side to falter and fall, we’re still here. You may defeat some but with every minute that you expend your energy taking those you can, our side is getting stronger and, one day, you will be the one to falter and fall. One day, you will turn your back for just one moment too long and we will take you. It may take years, lifetimes, more lives than should ever be lost, but one day we will win. One day, we will beat you.

Too many people have been lost to your painful attacks. Too many families made to suffer just so that you can claim what? Another victory? Tell me, is it really a fight when it’s you versus a toddler diagnosed with some rare form of your weaponry? Is it a fair fight when you take a fit and healthy adult and tear them apart? When a young man, at the doorway to an amazing world before him, is weakened before he can place a foot over that threshold? You use weapons that so far we haven’t managed to meet as an equal, but it will happen. You will lose this fight. Everything and everyone has their weaknesses, a part of them that can be used to wear them down until they are nothing. Until they can do nothing. This is what we will find in you. A weakness. A crack in your oh so strong defences that we can prise apart with our science, our research, our ever-growing understanding and knowledge. Because you see, those are our weapons. Our real fighting tools. And with every day they grow stronger and stronger. The moment those are strong enough, you too will be worn down until you can do nothing. Until you can no longer cause pain, no longer move people out of their happy lives into a world of hospital visits, complicated vocabulary and an unknown future. With every person who survives your attacks, we are prodding you closer and closer to the edge of a dangerous cliff and one day that cliff will fall away beneath your feet. Bye-Bye Cancer and good riddance!

I scroll through Facebook and see too many people saying goodbye to those they love. People my age talking about the loss of someone they shouldn’t be losing. Preferably not ever, but certainly not now. But while those people are hurting more than anyone else can imagine, they are also adding to our side of the fight. They are showing support for the research going towards your destruction. They’re climbing mountains, donating money, running races, wearing pink. All these people may be smiling in the pictures, but on the inside we’re mad! Angry that you’re continuing to take what’s not yours. So we fight you with everything we’ve got whether that be a pair of trainers or a pink bra. No matter their age, young or old, five or 95, we are out there to get you. You can run, but you can’t hide.

Ready or not Cancer, here we come.