cancer

Are more people are being diagnosed with cancer these days?

When I think back to my early teenage years, I can only remember one person, a near neighbour and friend of my mother, being diagnosed with cancer. She was sent to Clatterbridge Hospital for treatment and I was given to understand that simply going there was an indication that she would not survive, as diagnosis was usually made at a late stage of the disease.

After leaving home, I found out that my best friend's mother had suffered from breast cancer and was so shy that she would not allow surgery and somehow coped with all the pain until she had to be hospitalised, just before she died. I can remember her protecting one side of her body from contact, but didn't realise what ws going on until many years later. How sad that she could not be helped; she was such a lovely woman and so brave.

Now, statistics show that 1 in 6 people will be diagosed with cancer. Soon, I ecpect that it will be 1 in 5 or even fewer. We are living longer and diagnostic scans and x-rays are finding the disease in ever-earlier stages, so I suppose it's no wonder that so many people have been found with the early stages of some form of the disease.

It's still hard to believe that no effective treatment has yet been found for so many of the types of cancer. Maybe the miracle cure will never will be found and we will just have to cope with a variety of drugs that manage the condition. If they allow a good standard of life, then that will have to be enough. Maybe that will be as good as it gets.