I've recently been binge-watching an interesting and entertaining story set in the West ("1883" - if you're into that kind of thing). Beyond the more woke, harshly realistic, and scenically exquisite telling of travelling the Oregon Trail, I noticed something about the people of that time. Everyone wore a hat. Most were for function (sun, rain and general protection against the elements) and some were for fashion (men's and women's). Either through ignorance or laziness, I would loosely classify these common chapeaus as a cowboy hat. Clearly that would be a very shallow categorization, and nowhere near accurately describe each one for its unique style and purpose (nor do justice to the owner for their very personal choice).
Whether you are a patient, family member or just a concerned friend getting some news, when you hear the word "cancer" - most often the specter of the disease takes over and it doesn't really matter what kind of cancer is being referenced. Take my Multiple Myeloma for example. There are eight different kinds of MM; each one uniquely different. And whether the diagnosis is one of these eight or one of the over 200 types of cancers that have been identified, each case is as individual as the proverbial singular snowflake. The pre-existing conditions of the patient (ie: age, gender, race, comorbidities, etc.), the nature of the diagnosis (early, late, too late), the variety of therapies necessary to address the disease (the extent of the treatment journey), and the potential prognosis (the hope and the uncertainty) - all contribute to making no two cases of cancer alike.
From the view of my novel perspective (neither right nor wrong, better nor worse - just mine), in the same way that some may foolishly lump all cowboy hats together into one class, we are often guilty of similarly grouping all cancers together. And in that same haste, we might imagine that all patients and all treatments are the same. Ask us what we have, what course of action is being prescribed, if therapies have had to change as a result of how our individual bodies have reacted to the medications - and realize that we're not always exactly sure how it's going to play out either; for us. No two answers will be the same.
