A Friend's Cancer

I had a note from an old friend yesterday. He acknowledged his diagnosis of a metastasis cancer and wondered about the future, but he left blank the present and numerous questions.

Ahh, the questions!

What to do? How to treat the growth? What are the effects on the body? What is the success rate of the treatment? How will I feel?  And the final question, how much time do I have if the treatment is not successful?

Those are the tough questions to answer, because medicine does not have absolute answers. Medicine can only surmise or project or guess based on previous statistics and treatment.

How many times have you heard the doctor’s say someone had three months to live and they were still alive two years later? Medicine and divine omniscience have a long way to go before they are in sync.

I am within the age of asking those questions for myself, but so far I have not needed to ask them. Yes, like so many of us in family circumstances, I have participated in both the wrenching process and the sacred success of fighting cancer. I have also witnessed the futile failure of curative medicine for specific cancers.

Having said that, I do know that the learned doctors around the world labor hard in the vineyard of academic research and with grant funds and personal intention they will eventually find some answers.

I don’t think that all answers or cures can be known. Each individual spirit has a plan for growth and knowledge where disease is only a protagonist in the dynamic learning of life.