Dear Cancer:

First of all, I think I speak for everyone when I say YOU SUCK.

Truthfully, words aren’t quite enough for me to explain my hatred of you.

All you do is take. You take people’s happiness. You take their strength. You take their life. Sometimes, you take their faith.

The worst part, though?

You can’t stop with just one.

You don’t realize that when you decide to target a person for no reason, you’re targeting the rest of their family. You’re targeting their children, their spouses, their friends. You’re targeting their parents, their siblings, anyone who has ever been even remotely close to them.

You can’t stop yourself at just one person, and it’s getting old.

I’ve dealt with you enough in the past five years to last me a life time. I’ve seen families destroyed, I’ve seen spirits broken, and I’ve seen people taken too early. I’ve seen families unable to cope with the stress. I’ve seen people lash out at those they love because they can’t deal with everything that’s happening to them. I’ve seen people push others away because they don’t know how to talk about what they’re going through. I’ve seen it, I’ve lived through it, and unfortunately, I’ll see it again.

But the good things I’ve seen?

For every bad thing mentioned above, I’ve seen the exact same things happen in reverse. I’ve seen people take joy in the simplest things. I’ve seen people become the strongest person I’ve ever seen, fighting for their life against you. I’ve seen people become even closer to their God, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that He would help them through it. I’ve seen people laughing until the very end, laughing in your face even as they take their last few breaths.

I’ve seen families become closer. I’ve seen communities surround those families with all the love they could muster, doing everything they could to help in any way possible.

Most importantly, I’ve seen people kick your ass.

I can’t say I know what’s it’s like to battle you first hand, but I’m more than equipped to describe what it’s like to see someone I love deal with you. While you’re killing the person I love, you’re slowly killing me. You’re making me think about things that an 18-year-old shouldn’t have to think about. You’ve made stressful times worse, and you’ve even made happy times horrible. You do everything in your power to make people miserable.

You’re taking away everything.

But I won’t let you.

I’ve been working against you since I was in sixth grade and joined the StingCancer group. I’ve been fighting you in every way that I was capable of fighting back. And guess what? You lose.

I haven’t given up fighting you, and we all know that that is your main goal. You want to fight someone to the brink of exhaustion, until their spirit breaks, and then go for the kill. But what if we don’t let you? What if, for once, someone stands up to you and shows you just how wrong you were at picking a fight with them? That is when a cancer patient wins.

That’s when you lose.

And personally, I think you losing is the best thing a person can ever see. No words can describe the feeling you get after every good report, every test that comes back negative, and every step a person takes in the right direction.

And while you may succeed in taking lives, you can never take away the memories. The memories of the good times, of the bad times, and the times that simply existed, will live forever, whether you have taken the person or not.

Thus, if I may, I’d like to speak on the behalf of all those affected by cancer when I say: go away. We’re done with you. You don’t belong here, we don’t want you here, and we’ve had enough of you to last a lifetime.