If this was only 'a one man's story' in confronting cancer it might prove to be a decent read but at best it would be just one more such story. It might provide catharsis for the author and it might touch a chord with some number of its readers but it would remain, at its core, just another cancer story. Which isn't necessarily a bad or a good thing, simply a commonplace one. To recognize it as such isn't to minimize it in any way. Trust me, cancer gets one's attention in a very frightening and serious way. But this isn't a commonplace story and it isn't, at its core, a story about cancer. The cancer was merely a messenger. It wasn't the first but it will, God willing, be the last such message my thick skull requires to finally comprehend.
By all the medical evidence and experience my journey with cancer is just beginning. The original cancer was a stage 4 melanoma which has a high incidence of recurrence and the typical concern, not to say fear, is that it can and does travel around the body and once enough of the cancer is on the loose, so to speak, it's only a matter of time before the recurrences overwhelm the body's and medical science's ability to fend it off. But this is also a story of hope and more than that the miraculous power of God to act in our lives as He sees fit.
What makes my journey with cancer different is that it isn't a sad if life affirming story or a defiant denial of the coming abyss but rather a story of blessings and becoming--and finally gratitude and understanding. A story of how God intervened in an ordinary life.
