Yes or no, I’d wanna know ... ya’ know?

It's no surprise that discussions in my family lately have been rather – focused. There have been conversations that I don't think would be happening otherwise. Like this one …

As I already have mentioned, my mom and I visited my sister last week, just for a few hours … basically to deliver post-Valentine's Day gifts, pre-St. Patrick's Day gifts and to get caught up on the family news. And, as I've already mentioned, as of late "family news" has been VERY much a downer. My mom's sister and niece (a mother-and-daughter) are both dealing with Cancer.

So there we are, in my sister's living room – five females (my mom, her two daughters, and her two grand-daughters). If we each represented a percentage, 40% of us have already had Cancer. In fact, that same 40% have fought it twice. That's … well, that's just kinda overwhelming.

My aunt, who will not win her fight, has a medical degree and worked for many years as a physician. As such, when she meets with her doctors, they don't have to explain too much to her – she knows what she's up against, and she knows what the prognosis is. One of her doctors has given her a large bottle of Morphine, telling her to use it whenever she's in too much pain to sleep and, basically, to help her remain comfortable … which is rather a large amount of BS. There is little comfort to be had, I am sure. My uncle, however, has taken this bit of news as "that must be good. They're giving you medicine so maybe things are looking up." We ALL know that my uncle is just avoiding reality – but he's allowed to do so.

So the question is this … who would you want to be in that scenario? Your choices are my uncle, who probably knows that things are NOT going to be better but wants to believe there may be a chance … or my aunt, who knows for sure that things are only going to get worse and can prepare herself (and hopefully those around her) for her demise.

My mom said that she wouldn't want to know that there was no hope, and I couldn't have disagreed more quickly. As an interesting twist, I'll point out that both of us been told in our past that we had Cancer. Both of us were also told that what we had was benign ('tho mine would have killed me if it had continued to progress). When my mom received her diagnosis, she sat down with my dad, my sister, and I and explained what was going on and what would be happening. I, in my "I know everything at 19 years old" ignorance, told two human beings, neither of which were family members, handled it alone, and didn't divulge any details to my family until 18 months had passed.

I suspect that there will be plenty more conversations like this in the weeks and months to come. It'd almost be "interesting" ……. if these weren't people I didn't know and love.