The C Word

When did people stop calling it "The Big C", or "The C Word", and just start saying it, "Cancer"? I remember my parents and grandparents in the kitchen in hushed voices saying, "Did you hear? Shirley's got the Big C. It came back..."
I wondered if she was taking classes and not doing very well. I was young, and I was wrong, at least about the school part.
I recently found out that two of my cousins have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
One is my Tia Anita's daughter, the other is my Auntie Maggie's. My friend lost his wife last year after a very short, dramatically short battle with pancreatic cancer. It was only a couple of weeks after her diagnosis before she lost her battle. She was young, and left behind two young daughters. I hate that for their family. Hate it.
Then again, I don't know whether that was a blessing or just another one of life's cruel twists of fate. I suppose it was a little bit of both.
I watched my aunt die slowly, painfully, mercilessly from cancer. She was deluded by the morphine, overwhelmed with pain, and frightened.
It took that woman two years to pass. Two years of bed baths, tubes, needles, nurses...
Two years of my uncle tending to her dutifully. Two years of her children and family watching her suffer day after day, after day...
Cancer. She doesn't care who you are, how old or young you are, how much money you do or don't have to spend fighting her. She pays no attention to how kind and generous you've been in your life. Karma is not in her vocabulary. She'd just as soon pick you as anyone else on this planet.
No rhyme. No reason.
Cancer is an equal opportunity bitch.