Sadly, You're Never Alone with Cancer

I was walking home from work today when I passed this graffiti chalked on the wall in a park near my house. I'm not sure how the person who wrote it is keeping score, but I'm glad to see they're winning. 

I've mentioned before how shocked I am by how many people I know who are dealing with cancer, but in some ways the shock has worn off and I've reached the point where now it just makes me sad. At every turn it seems someone I know -- or who I know of -- is announcing their membership in the cancer club.

One of the craziest examples of this comes from Kevin Drum's political blog on MotherJones.com. Drum recently announced his own diagnosis of multiple myeloma, and while he doesn't post much about his experience with the treatment, when he does post such items it's amazing how many comments he gets that boil down to a variation of "when I was going through this, my experience was..." 

It's like the whole bloody world has cancer. I wish we could find a better way to establish our commonalities.