If we were all allowed to pick the way we were going to die, then cancer would be eradicated tomorrow. It would cease to exist because no one would ever choose to go out that way. Not even the most masochistic or attention-deprived among us would elect to have a highly-treatable form of the disease in order to meet their needs, if they really knew what cancer treatment was like.
Cancer (and it's treatment) is ugly. A formerly vibrant human being lies there, wracked with pain, wasting away while a mass of rouge cells roils through their body destroying as it sees fit. And our response is either to poison it, or to shoot radiation at it, or to cut it out, or some combination of the three.
That's not to say that amazing progress hasn't been made in the treatment of the disease. Thanks to the huge amount of money thrown at the problem, cancer isn't nearly the death sentence it was thirty years ago. But it is still far too common of a diagnosis; there are still children forced to face their own mortality way before they should be and guilt-ridden families left behind to deal with the aftermath.
To that end, former best beloved Craig Breslow will be hosting a fundraising gala in New Haven, CT on November 7. The money raised will go to his Strike 3 Foundation, which supports pediatric cancer research. And as an added incentive to actually making the trek down there, despite not being the best public speaker and possibly making everyone seasick from his swaying/inability to stand still (which might prove disastrous after eating from a raw bar) Nomar is supposed to be the guest speaker.
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