Friday, April 20, 2007

An Unwanted Journey: Day 0513 - The Cruelty of Cancer

I talked to my aunt yesterday who is to have surgery to expunge her melanoma on Monday next week. It is very serious. Like me (although mine is invisible), she will have an amputation. Cancer is so cruel.

And yet we may be counted among the lucky ones (as is my father whose bladder cancer is in complete remission and who no longer needs to see his oncologist on even an annual basis). Imagine instead, that you are the parent of a child with terminal cancer. Imagine, too, that you live somewhere where there is no universal medical care. As the cancer steals the health of your child, it eats away at your life's savings, and leaves you penniless. And then the moment comes when you have to say a final goodbye to your child.

The Sacramento Bee photographer, Renee C. Byer won the Pulitzer Prize for her documentary black-and-white photographs of one such family's experience of the cruelty of cancer. Visit the site, go through the photographs from start to finish, reading the text...and then thank God you are one of the lucky ones (with gratititude to Robert Scoble for finding this photo essay): http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2007/feature-photography/works/index.html.

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