"Oh Cancer, You Evil Bastard"

A couple of years ago, one of my husband’s Christmas gifts to me was the popular “23andMe” ancestry thingamabob.

He bought it for me because I’d expressed interest in the equally popular competitor, “Ancestry,” the tool that allegedly helps you trace your family tree back to the Paleolithic Age. It’s the kit that’s frequently advertised on TV and touted as ideal for holiday gift-giving.

Due to the glowing reviews, I was excited to receive “23andMe” until I realized it wasn’t so much a family tree tracker but rather a deep dive into its customers’ DNA. In other words, it allows you to discover every fucking thing that’s going on in your body, has gone on, or will go on at some unfortunate point in the future.

Hard pass.

As someone who struggles with anxiety, I don’t need to see, in black and white, or colored squares or crossbones or whatever the hell they use, that my gene pool is fucked up.

You see, as is the case in so many other families, cancer, and other ailments but primarily the Big C, has cut a wide swath through mine. And as I write this, it’s trying to take down yet another family member and I can barely wrap my head around it.

Lung cancer killed my paternal grandfather, a robust Russian immigrant who, at the time of his death, was less than a shadow of his former, feisty self. He was diminished before our eyes.

A sudden heart attack took down my mother’s father, who dropped dead on Easter Sunday after washing his car. He never made it up the steps to the apartment he shared with my grandmother, who was so stunned by his death that she succumbed to Alzheimer's in her sixties.

Ultimately, she had to be admitted to a “facility,” because she would get up from her bed in my aunt’s home in the middle of the night and leave the house, looking for her husband…searching for “Joe.”

My mother had four siblings. Cancer wiped out two of them. Lung and throat for my uncle and lung cancer for my aunt, my mother’s “baby sister.”

Of course, cancer doesn’t just strike and let us be. Let us exit this world in relative peace. Rather, like a rabid animal, it tears us up, bit by bit. Not all at once, mind you. It strikes and retreats. Strikes and retreats. Just long enough for us to feel safe, like we’re “out of the woods” and “on the mend.” As it did for my cousin, but more on that in a bit.

Cancer certainly sharpened its claws on my uncle. Part of one lung had to be excised and then, after it was discovered that the scourge had spread to his throat, it was “bye-bye” larynx. After that particular slash and burn, he had to use one of those gizmos to help him speak. The one that makes people sound like Martians.

It didn’t matter a damn though as he seemed to have run out of things to say. As a former “life of the party” kind of guy, my uncle was never the same after that. And then he was gone.

Cancer. All the pink crap in the world can’t “pretty-up” its ravaging effect on the body. Nor will it ever. As far as I’m concerned, screw the ribbons and bows and walks and tchotchkes…all of it. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but find a fucking cure already!

As it turns out, there will never be a “one size fits all” cure anyway as over 200 diseases fall under the cancer umbrella, according to foxchase.org.

Yes. The devil is in the details.

And then we received the news that my mother’s youngest sister had lung cancer. Before you ask, I’ll admit that yes, all of these folks were former smokers. That said, even lifelong abstinence from tar and nicotine is no guarantee that cancer won’t up-end your world as you know it. For example, the late actor, Christopher Reeve’s wife Dana, who was a non-smoker, died of lung cancer.

Cancer is an equal-opportunity destroyer. And yes, that probably scares the living shit out of you as it does me. I apologize for that, but, like Covid and its variances, it’s a tragic reality.

My aunt was the most happy-go-lucky person you’d ever want to meet. She and her husband never had much money, nor had any particular desire for material things yet, her kids adored her. She was an excellent mother and so much fun to be around! And even after her diagnosis, she held onto her sunny disposition. And then she, too, was gone.

So many people, gone.

Six years ago, cancer settled in even closer to home when both my parents were diagnosed with stage four lung cancer at the same time. What the hell are the odds of that?

And then less than two months later, I received my own diagnosis of breast cancer.

And that’s why I have no desire to discover what my DNA says about me. There is no need for me to wade even deeper into my murky gene pool, thick as treacle with abnormally-shaped cells.

My parents fought like the champs they were. Chemo. Horrific procedures like Gamma Knife Surgery that my father had to undergo to stop the tumor in his brain from spreading. Or, tumors. I can’t remember. And that’s just the beginning.

While my wonderful sister cared for them in her home, there were nine months of doctor visits and back and forth stays at the hospital and treatment after treatment until finally, there was nothing left but hospice care.

And then they were gone, within two weeks of one another. One funeral, followed by the next. It’s all a blur to me now and I’m guessing that’s deliberate.

Yet, here I am. My cancer was caught very early but even so, one never forgets hearing that word. It resides in the back of the brain where we keep those situations and events that, for our tremulous sense of well-being, are best kept hidden. Muffled. Until those nights or early mornings when we can’t sleep and the truth of things looms large and makes us squeeze our eyes shut and pull the covers over our heads.

It’s funny, and if you’ve survived cancer, you might relate to this. I feel weird proclaiming that I’m “blessed,” as it implies that some deity singled me out for survival. Not only is that arrogant, but ridiculous. So I just say that I’m “lucky.” Incredibly lucky to be here writing this story for you. And, for me too, I suppose.

Christmas has become unrelentingly commercial. For months ahead of time, we’re cajoled to buy as much stuff as we can possibly afford because, as we all know, if we don’t, if we say, “just fuck this,” we won’t be loved. That’s our fear, anyway. That our worth to our loved ones is tied to the quality of the gifts we bestow upon them.

Is it any wonder that as a society, we’re going down the shitter?

Earlier, I referenced another relative who is currently battling cancer. It’s my first cousin, my mother’s sister’s daughter. One day, she awoke with a terrible backache, and the next, it was determined that she had a type of blood cancer called multiple myeloma.

She has been in the hospital for weeks, now. I’d spoken with her a couple of months ago and was encouraged to hear how well she was doing. She’s a tough chick so I wasn’t surprised. But, as I said about cancer, it’s an evil bastard that retreats like the wraith it is, only to come back with a vengeance. So now, my cousin is dealing with some truly nasty shit.

As I respect her privacy, I won’t say any more other than to tell you that I pray for her daily, even while I don’t know who or what I’m praying to.

I pray for myself too, so that I remain relatively healthy and never have to deal with this monster, again. As I do for all of us. And if I could have one Christmas wish, it would be to tell cancer the following:

“Fuck off and die.”

And, make it so.

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. She is currently pitching her newest screenplay, “The Month We Fell Apart,” a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story, as well as “DEAD TIRED,” a female-driven, ass-kicking thriller.