Let’s Make Cancer History

We are coming for you, cancer. You are going to be history.

The army is mobilized. The boots are on the ground.

We use martial imagery because this IS a war. You are killing us, cancer, but we are fighting back.

Front-line physicians and nurses are fighting back.

Specialists are fighting back.

Research scientists are fighting back.

Most of all, patients and their families are fighting back.

We are coming for you.

Soon – soon – you are going to be history.

Here’s how we will end you, cancer.

Compassion. Intelligence. Courage. Patience. Strength.

Love.

Here’s how it will happen.

It will happen through the patient care and research by our friends at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. We saw first-hand in September how powerful hope and kindness and courage can be in this fight. You do not stand a chance, cancer.

We stand with St. Jude.

It will happen through humor, because the most powerful tool at our disposal is the joy of living — as embodied by our friends at Camp Kesem. A recent public service announcement created by the production team for the upcoming movie, Deadpool, and the UK testicular cancer awareness organization, Ballboys, nails it:

We stand with Ryan “Deadpool” Reynolds and Ballboys, just as we stood with the Testicular Cancer Foundation when we each wrote testicular cancer PSAs of our own in 2013:

An Awkward Post About Balls.

Seconds to Check, a Lifetime of Moments to Savor.

It will happen through daily affirmation: We will never give up. Please watch the famous video and recall Jim Valvano’s grace. Laugh, think and cry with him again, and understand that this is how cancer will lose.

We stand with Jim Valvano.

It will happen through collective commitment from all of us. So much divides us in this world, but we stand together on this common ground.

Our commitment was galvanized by our friend, Oren Miller, when he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2014. His dignity and grace and strength and humor inspired us all.

It inspired us to fight you, cancer. It inspired us to end you, together — as we show each autumn with our hairy friends from Movember.

We stand with Oren Miller and his beautiful family.

It will happen through leadership from people in a position to make meaningful change. The president’s announcement in January of a national Moonshot to Eliminate Cancer was uplifting, and Vice President Joe Biden’s appointment as the movement’s leader was perfect.

We stand with Joe and his team as they shoot for the moon.

It will happen because every day is World Cancer Day. Today just happens to be the day designated to remind us that this is a war. You are killing us, cancer.

But we are fighting back.

This is a war fought with love and courage.

We are coming for you, cancer. You do not stand a chance.

Soon, you are going to be history.

Soon.