On Being a Cancer Survivor: Relay For Life, a Battle That Needs to Be Fought

Today and tomorrow the , which supports cancer research, will commence activities in Montville Township. They do a tremendous thing with this program and it ought to be supported. I am sure it will be a success.

Everyone has their cancer stories. More and more those stories are having successful outcomes, but the battle is far from over. In our family, the story is longer than some and shorter than others.

Our first brush with cancer was in 1997 when my mother developed colon cancer. In 1998, I was diagnosed with and treated for prostate cancer. In 1999, my mother who had had "successful treatment" for colon cancer, had it reappear as lung cancer and she passed that year. The same year, my father-in-law was diagnosed with a type of blood cancer. In 2002, suffering from the progression of that disease, he took his own life. That same year, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She and I are now "cancer free." However, as anyone knows, once the word cancer enters your life or one of your loved one's lives you are never free of the concern.

The people who run this event and the others like it are amazing warriors in the battle to put an end to cancer in all its forms. Progress is made and it is because of programs like this and the people who give of themselves to run them that progress results in longer and fuller lives for survivors.