Begging in the street–and elsewhere

There are few things I enjoy less than asking people for money. Unfortunately, for the last seven days that is exactly the activity I have been engaged in. Were it not for Jane’s death from NET cancer twenty-five months and 22 days ago I would likely have spent that time reading, walking, and working on one of the books Jane and I had planned to write after we retired.

I hate what NET cancer did to her.

And if NET cancer research were well-funded and supported by large foundations on the scale of breast cancer, I might be contemplating a run for the state House of Representatives or the US senate seat vacated today by John Kerry–or at least be nearing the end of putting together the journalism book I have always wanted to write. No doubt I would still be working on the Greater Fall River Relay For Life, but I would not feel the need–or the pressure–to focus additional energy on raising money and awareness for this little-known form of cancer.

NET cancer and my despair

Nor would I feel an obligation to immerse myself in the kind of research that brings me into daily contact with just how slender our resources are and how that affects the progress toward a cure. That knowledge is especially painful because every day brings me into contact, as well, with those who currently have NET cancer. To look into their eyes, to read their words, and to know what I know is a recipe for  a special kind of madness that is equal parts hope and despair.

...dying and taking it with them.

I know that if nothing changes each of those patients faces the same death I watched Jane struggle through. I know each of them will kill their NET cancer the same way Jane did: by dying and taking it with them.

NET cancer tears

Jane wept when I told her the night before she died that there was nothing left they could do. She could not talk–she did not have the strength–and I have wondered since if I did the right thing in telling her. I do not know if those tears came from pain at what I had told her or joy that she was finally going to be done with all the embarrassments. She was a proud woman–and the diarrhea she could not control had stripped her of every ounce of dignity.

There are few things I enjoy less…

I hate what NET cancer did to her. I hate what it will do to all the other patients I have met. I hate what it did to me. And I hate what it does to the families and their lives.

My hatred

I hate begging for money. But I have spent the week doing exactly that because I hate NET cancer even more.