Cancer.

I don't have it. Well, really I don't know, I guess. But I haven't been diagnosed with it. I haven't been checked for it, either. One of my roommates and I were having a discussion about it last night. That's why I'm blogging about it.

We were watching Dexter, which is a television series about a blood spatter analyst who lives a double life as a serial killer. It's far more interesting than the description I just gave. Even so, it's pretty clear that conversations that are sparked by viewing the show won't center on happy things like lollipops or unicorns.

No, I suppose lollipops can't really be happy. And I guess unicorns can be downright ornery at times. Tell you what - you find a grumpy unicorn and bring it to me, and I'll stop blogging about cancer.

So my roommate and I were talking about cancer. Our discussion was sparked by a moment in an episode of Dexter where a long time acquaintance of the main character (who's name, in a surprising twist of events, is Dexter) is dying of a terminal illness. We started talking about the ways in which it would be really, really, really bad to die of a long, drawn-out illness. After covering a few different angles in that conversation, I shared with my roommate a thought I've had about cancer in the last year or two:

Were I diagnosed with cancer, I would seriously consider refusing treatment.

Of course, this kind of thought (or many thoughts I have about many things, I suppose) would be subject to rapid and radical change in the event that I became aware of a life-threatening disease that was ravaging my body. But it's the thought I've had on the subject lately.

I suppose one might wonder what sort of stupid, backwards reasoning I have behind this thought. I don't think it's quite so backwards - I mean, it is MY thought, right? Anyway, here it is:

From what I've seen while having only been connected to three people who have suffered from cancer (two of whom have died from it), the physical realities of a disease that has destroyed countless lives (both of those afflicted and those surrounding them) are secondary in my mind to this concern:

When someone has cancer (as far as I've seen, anyway), his or her whole life is about cancer. Every personal interaction is laden with cancer. "Hey, how are you feeling? You doin' okay?" Hey, is that...? Yeah, that's him. Oh, how's he doing? Cancer becomes the frame of reference for most everyone talking to or about the person who has it. A person's identity is taken over by a disease. This, in my uninformed, know-nothing-about-cancer opinion, is why cancer is so terrible.

Realistically, I don't have any right to speak about this stuff as though I know anything about it. But that's what I think about it. I don't mean to offend people who have had experiences with cancer. I also ended two consecutive paragraphs with a colon, making it seem as though my blog was just coming around to some point that would actually never be made. I don't mean to offend people with literature backgrounds. Grumpy unicorn, I'll stop doing both.