Cancer Again

It seems like we hear more and more often that someone we know has cancer and it makes me so angry, knowing how fearful they must be not knowing if they'll be able to beat it.

For the last maybe 5 years I've depended on my wonderful and honest handyman, Don, to take care of odd jobs at my house.  He's the one I call when the eaves-troughs need cleaning out in the spring or when something isn't working in the house or when a heavy job needs doing in the yard.  I've considered myself very lucky to have found such a good man to count on because I can't do it all in this house.  I called him on Wednesday to see if he could come and clean the eaves-troughs and he informed me that he's been receiving treatment all winter for esophagus cancer and would be having the surgery on Thursday (yesterday).  My heart sunk.  That was the same cancer that killed my husband although he was never a candidate for the surgery.

Don is such a good person, hard working and honest to a tee.  It angers me that such a person should have to contend with this deadly disease and I'm very fearful for his outcome.  Don, like so many others, works for himself without any pension or sick leave plan to fall back on.  He's too young at 55 to collect any of our government pensions so his illness is hitting him doubly hard financially.  Sometimes life is so damned unfair.

I hope with all my heart that his surgery cures him (I know of at least one lady who had the same surgery years ago and was cured) and he lives on to a peaceful old age.  He deserves it if anyone does.  My Dennis wasn't able to have this surgery because of the location of the tumor and I'll always wonder if we should have looked for a surgeon who would have done it anyway.  In any case, I'm glad that Don was a candidate and hope that he'll sail through the surgery to health.  We always have hope because there are many people who beat cancer.  

I wish sometimes that I was a praying person but, for now, I'll have to trust the fates that he'll make it.