Cancer

11/12/14  I've been called "courageous" and a "survivor" for battling my cancer for 12 years. I take the compliments as compassionate thoughts, but do they reflect what I and other people living with cancer...

10/29/14-Although I’ve lived with prostate cancer for twelve years, it’s not something that I dwell upon. But inevitably, at least once a day, it grabs my ass and says, “gotcha!” It can be when I’m...

There are 12 million of us in the United States who live with cancer and the number rises every year as researchers find new drugs to extend our lives. How will you respond when you hear the words "I have cancer?"

It was an invitation that made no sense. I was asked to be a special guest of the South Korean Ministry of Tourism and KMI International, a company that markets medical tourism. Why me, I wondered? As I re-read the invitation, I remembered another strange offer I received in the 1970’s during a tense period in Israeli-Arab relations. “Hello Dr. Goldberg,” an official from the Jordan Ministry of Education had said. “We’d like to know if you would be interested in coming to Ramallah to conduct a seminar on stuttering therapy this summer.”

As someone who’s living with prostate cancer, I applauded Louis Gossett Jr.’s testimony in Congress on the importance of prostate cancer research funding. If congress was listening, maybe I’ll live long enough for something else to kill me. But according to the American Cancer Society statistics, I shouldn’t hold my breath.

It was Monday, May 27, 2002 and the morning fog was clearing. Sitting in my kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, I watched the Pacific become visible. It would be a great day. Then the phone rang. “Good morning Stan”, my doctor said, “the results are positive.”