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Sadness

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Clarissa

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I just discovered that my favorite student has cancer. This is a very young guy, he’s only 20 years old. An athlete, a very hard-working fellow from Chicago’s South Side. He was my research assistant last year and did great work for my new book. This is so sad and unfair.

A few months ago, I also learned that a very close friend of mine, a woman in her forties, had stage 3 cancer. Again, completely inexplicable and horribly unfair. When I learned about my friend’s cancer, I was devastated because this is somebody who means a lot to me. So as I was sitting there, feeling crushed by the news, I felt Klara kick inside me for the very first time. It is as if she knew that I was sad and wanted to comfort me.

5 responses to “Sadness”

  1. Barbara Avatar
    Barbara

    Yes, cancer is no fun but some kinds are indeed curable; others are very treatable. Here’s hoping these two people have good doctors and good luck with their treatments,
    Sign me,
    Been there, done that.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Thank you! He’s young and athletic, he’s got to beat it.

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      1. Barbara Avatar
        Barbara

        I hate to be a wet blanket but unfortunately, it has very little to do with how young or healthy you are, it has to do much more with the sort of cancer you have. Testicular cancer (which is one of the most frequent cancers young men get) for example, is curable even when it has spread to other organs (see Lance Amstrong). That is because doctors have found out how to treat it.

        Pancreatic cancer is almost always fatal. within a few years. That is because doctors have yet to discover how to treat it successfully (Ruth Bader Ginsburg survived her pancreatic cancer because it was accidently found as a result of a scan for another medical condition and it was very, very small and hadn’t spread). One kind of breast cancer, called HER+ used to have terrible odds but then treatments were discovered that in some cases actually cured patients, and extended the lives of many other patients by significant amounts.

        Meanwhile, the science of cancer is progressing. Understanding genetics is a big part of that. So where there is life, there is increasing hope.

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  2. Evelina Anville Avatar
    Evelina Anville

    This is very sad news. I will be sending good thoughts his way. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  3. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    Very sad. I’ll be thinking of them. I hope they have a speedy and complete recovery and the cancers go completely into remission permanently.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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