I saw cancer and, yes, it was ugly

Did I ever tell you I saw cancer?

This is not a joke. Over the summer I decided to pay the incoming occupational therapy class a visit to their anatomy class. As they were poking through their cadavers someone asked me if I wanted to see what cancer looked like. Me being me, of course I said yes!

I saw pancreatic cancer. I wasn't prepared for my emotional reactions--sadness and anger. I don't know what I was expecting cancer to look like but it didn't look like what I expected. His pancreas was covered in these white blobs. The cancer had spread to to parts of his liver and colon. The gentleman who died from it was 45 years old, so young! I felt angry that he died so young and sad that he died so young.

All I could think was, "Wow, cancer is a BEAST." I can't imagine the pain that man must have been in...that cancer was everywhere. I wondered about his family and what kind of life he lived before he died.

My classmate told me that she drives by a billboard of a young girl, in her early twenties, with a caption that reads, 'CANCER, YOU'LL QUIT BEFORE I DO.'

Well stated.