We all know too much about cancer and too many people who have it, had it, didn’t make it or lost someone from it.

I’m pretty mad at cancer, myself, and would like to punch it in the neck.

Update August 8, 2012:

Over the last couple of years, I used an Amazon affiliate account to generate a series of small donations to the American Cancer Society. Together, we raised a total of $1000.00. Amazon has a convoluted policy about what orders count towards affiliate revenue, and over time fewer and fewer of your orders were included. I’ve ended the campaign on this high note. Though cancer is still a rat bastard.  

How Did This Start?

Here is a repost from this project’s launch:

After a heroic battle with a whole buncha cancer, we lost my grandmother in January 2010. She fought hard and long and lasted longer than anyone thought she should. What can I say, she wanted to live.

But let me tell you a little bit about her. Grandma loved life and she loved people and she didn’t know how to stop working. When she got cancer, her treatment became her job. And she always got the job done. The world’s most compliant patient, she made her appointments, took her medication as directed, and did everything the doctors said she should. And it worked for a really long time.

After spending more than a decade fighting and beating kidney, then bladder, then lung cancer, she earned a few years of freedom from cutting and chemo. Then they found another lung cancer, but by now she was too old and sick and cut up for them to really go after it aggressively. So she was on chemo for three years to keep it at bay. She showed them all. She showed them resilience, and fierce determination and strength and relentless cheer. She also showed them every side effect that has ever been noted in a medical textbook, some mild, some debilitating.

But she didn’t dwell on the bad stuff, and I won’t either. Here are some non-cancer-related factoids about Sylvia.

• She was a working mother before it was fashionable.
• Well into her 80s, she told her grandchildren to date around a lot before settling down.
• She thought it was great that couples live together before marriage nowadays – what better way to get to know someone?
• She had no patience for intolerance.
• She loved the Internet and selling things on eBay.
• She served on a number of committees at her synagogue, and even when they made decisions she didn’t agree with, she backed them to the hilt.
• She was the fastest typist in captivity, but since she learned on typewriters, she beat the everlovin’ crazap out of her computer keyboard.

And because cancer is an asshole, it kept her on the ropes for years, making the fight her full-time occupation and wearing her down, taking her away piece by piece.

This is for her, and my grandfather and a couple of uncles, and your loved ones and your neighbors and ourselves and everyone everywhere impacted by this douchebaggy disease.

Why the ACS?

There are a lot of kinds of cancer out there making people miserable. I hate ‘em all. Let’s not play favorites here. There are plenty of cancer-specific sites out there – this one is intended for wholesale loathing of the disease in general. If you have a more specific donation in mind, I encourage you to go for it!

Related posts:

 
$1,000!!! Cancer is Still an Asshole, but I think we’re done here. 
Cancer is an Asshole: $26.89 means I’m going to the beach. 
Cancer is an Asshole: $64.91 smackeroos. 
Cancer is an Asshole: $34.95 is a great way to kick off summer. 
Cancer is an Asshole: $14.29 and a hearty thanks.