I came in contact with Cancer when I was twelve years old.
I didn't have a chance to formally greet him.
No, I had to stand back and watch him take control of my very own existence.
He didn't show interest in much of anything at first, but it didn't take long before he got bored-- Before he wanted to make his presence known to the world: My world.
You see, Cancer is an attention seeker. He is always the topic of everyone's conversations and he's the type of person who likes whatever publicity he can get, never minding that all this big talk is bad.
I blame myself for thinking that I can turn a bad man good, for hoping that if I spew positive words, he would stop burdening us with negativity. I had hope that he would leave people alone and not get so easily bored.
Cancer was a friend of my dad's,
well that's what he called himself at least.
My dad had something else to say about it but he was only trying to be polite. Needless to say, Cancer decided that he wanted to stay with us for a while.
He took my parent's room, said he would rather take the stairs so my dad wouldn't have a hard time getting up them.
He was a big shot, rated himself a four out of a scale of four. He made my dad feel less than a two.
"What's your level of pain on a scale from one to ten, Mr. Howard?" the nurse asked.
"Six," he replied.
The doctor said his high pain tolerance would make that at least an eight to a little girl like me.
Cancer has no heart, forever mirroring his inconsiderate actions.
Cancer made my dad lose a significant amount of weight that he needs to survive. Then made me cry alone in my room at night, but that wasn't enough. He kept my sister in her guidance counselor's room crying about how she wished my dad wasn't hurting so bad and he gave my mom a big enough migraine to nearly choke her whole, yet insisted that he needed more time-- that he wanted to stay.
"What's your level of pain on a scale from one to ten, Mr. Howard?"
"Seven," he replied.
In Seventh grade, my thoughts got a little dark. I started wearing black and refused to sunbathe in the summer. I had a whole poetry book devoted to how sad Cancer made me feel.
"What's your level of pain on a scale from one to ten, Mr. Howard?"
"Eight," he replied.
Eighth grade made it hard to share my feelings to others. I didn't feel much, I just got used to Cancer's stay. Four poetry books later and that was the end of middle school.
"What's your level of pain on a scale from one to ten, Mr. Howard?"
"Nine," he replied.
By Ninth grade, I started off my freshman year having to tell my teachers about my dad's cancer so they'd excuse me if I'd be a little off throughout the year.
Cancer introduced me to hospitals and it was there that I learned about the colostomy bag that my dad was going to have to wear.
It was there that I saw him at his worst, that I knew he didn't have to be asked what level of pain he was experiencing to know it was a ten. I already knew it was far beyond what I could take.
But what Cancer doesn't know is that one day my dad will be able to walk up the stairs to sleep in his own bed. One day my dad will no longer have stage four colorectal cancer.
What Cancer doesn't know, is that I no longer wear tons of black and my sister is thousands of miles away, stronger than ever before.
My mom's migraines come and go but she has no room in her heart for Cancer to stay any longer. She never liked him to begin with.
And the most important thing that Cancer doesn't know is that my dad is stronger than Cancer ever will be and that cancer isn't a death sentence: It is just a disease.
