I lost a couple members of my family abruptly this year as well, so I know there really isn't anything we can say to ease that feeling. So just take care of yourself, talk with your friends and family, and remember the good times.
Sorry to hear about your cousin NS. Losing a family member is the hardest. I lost my mother to lung cancer in 2000 and it hit me pretty hard back when it happened. What's sad is that she'd been a cigarette smoker from her teen-aged years on, and not just any smoker, but a unfiltered Lucky Strike smoker. She supposedly quit in 1965 along with my father. It turned out she couldn't shake the habit and decided to sneak smokes behind my father's back for years. Unfortunately, her habit eventually caught up with her. If she had quit for good from 1965 on, like she'd promised all of us, she probably would have never gotten the lung cancer that finally killed her, because my dad is still alive and healthy as a horse to this day.
Cat (n.) A bipolar creature which would as soon gouge your eyes out as it would cuddle.
tunnelcat wrote:Sorry to hear about your cousin NS. Losing a family member is the hardest. I lost my mother to lung cancer in 2000 and it hit me pretty hard back when it happened. What's sad is that she'd been a cigarette smoker from her teen-aged years on, and not just any smoker, but a unfiltered Lucky Strike smoker. She supposedly quit in 1965 along with my father. It turned out she couldn't shake the habit and decided to sneak smokes behind my father's back for years. Unfortunately, her habit eventually caught up with her. If she had quit for good from 1965 on, like she'd promised all of us, she probably would have never gotten the lung cancer that finally killed her, because my dad is still alive and healthy as a horse to this day.
I think research should focus on cancer more than any other chronic disease since heart disease/diabetes (type 2) are somewhat preventable. YOU have control over your risk factors to a much higher degree.
Cancer is different. Even if you 'eat right' and exercise...and be the healthiest person around- cancer can suddenly strike you down from nowhere. It's a terminal disease in many cases because by the time you have detectable symptoms (feeling bad or ill enough to go to a doctor), it's often too late and the victim is basically a dead person walking.
It's an insidious disease that is cruel and unrelenting.
. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"- Mao Zedong