My Meso Friend

Dear Friend

It has been a while since I wrote to you and told you what I thought it seems that you took no notice of the plea I made.

You still dominate my life and that of many, you changed our life to a normal that shouldn't be lived and everyday you seem to grow within the community of the human race.  You don't seem to hear that we don't want you within our circle of life, we hate the mention of your name and still fear the destruction you can do.

I have lost so many wonderful friends to the evil of your ways, even now your tentacles are reaching out and draining the life of many around, slyly sending your nasty cells out into our bodies, taking our life from within.

You have created death from a fibre of your being, you give no notice to those that you invade.  Your very existence was mined from the earth, a place where given the chance I would put you back, but deeper into the crust of the earth.

How do we destroy you Mesothelioma, I've been fighting you for years, my friends around the world have united in the war, we are Meso Warriors and each day we martyr another you have taken, but one day and one day soon you will be taken from the human body and shown for what you are.

Your killer cells will be starved from our bodies, your growth stumped in our lungs, your lumps stripped from our organs, one day we will be free but until then we have to hope we can last and keep taking each day with hope.

I end my letter to you, begging you to release us from your grip.  I don't want to lose my battle nor lose the friends that I have made.  Please let us find what makes you tick so we don't need to keep on fighting but can live our life in peace.  I don't want to die on the battlefield with my fellow warriors by my side, we want to have victory and be set free from your hold.

I have wrote this on behalf of those we have lost so far this year, to Ian who died this morning with his family by his side, to the Warriors who have had bad news that treatment hasn't worked, to those who have waited for trials only to find them closed.  We are united by a cancer that absorbs our lives, it takes courage from our loved ones to care for us and to know that all the efforts will still lead to them losing the person they love.  

Our lives and our families lives changed the day we were given our diagnosis, the many hours sat in hospitals, the stress of sitting outside operating theatres worrying in case we don't come through.  The trials that many try and face the unknown and sometimes an earlier death. The trauma of chemotherapy and the waiting for results.  Our loved ones may not suffer the physical pain but they suffer untold emotional pain.  They support us but who supports them?  Mesothelioma is a terrible cancer, one day we have hope then the next it is robbed.  We try to live for today but it isn't always possible, sometimes we forget we have this terrible cancer then it catches us unaware.  Always in our life, always in our thoughts.