So You Want to be a Cancer Patient?

(WARNING: Long, snarky, satirical, and only occasionally serious post lies ahead. No offense is intended to anyone, living or not, that has ever had or known anyone who has had cancer. But then, if you've been reading this blog for more than five minutes, you already know that.)

So You Want to be a Cancer Patient? A little advice before you get started:

1. BE YOUNG: The younger you are, the more types of treatments you’ll have available to you and the better you’ll be able to survive tolerate them.
2. (But Not Too Young:) Children going through cancer treatment only throws fuel on the There Is No God fire, and that makes certain people all kinds of uncomfortable.
3. BE MARRIED: Who wants to go through this alone? Specifically, be married to…
   
• Someone who either already does all the house chores/maintenance, is open to instruction/criticism re: above, or is willing/able to pay to have these duties outsourced.
• Has fantastic health insurance that offers 100%, hassle-free coverage of cancer treatments. This is an order so you can be…
• Unemployed, able to quit your job, or flex your hours. Being a cancer patient can be super time-consuming.
4. BE A PARENT: There’s a good chance that your treatment will render you infertile, so be sure to have all those kids before you get cancer.
5. BE LOCAL: By this I mean both…
• In the same town as a major cancer center. Gas prices these days…
• Also, within an hour or so’s drive of your large, generous family that has tons of free time to help you out, either because they are independently wealthy and/or retired (preferably both).
6. BE RELIGIOUS: A church can be a great support network, all those prayers can’t hurt, and genuinely believing that your disease is “all part of God’s plan” and/or that “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle” might help you sleep at night.
7. BE CULPABLE: By this I mean outwardly deserving of your particular type of cancer. It will put people at ease since they can reconcile your disease with the lifestyle choices that you have made. For instance:
• Lung cancer? Be a smoker.
• Cervical cancer? Be a woman of ill-repute.
• Skin cancer? Be tan in the dead of winter.
• Oral cancer? Be a retired pro baseball player.
• Prostate cancer? Be old.
8. BE DIAGNOSED WITH:
   • Early stage cancer. Those late stage ones can be real tricky.
   • Cancer not of the pelvic cavity. Or abdomen. Or chest. Really, the whole trunk is out. And the head. Skin cancer can be pretty bad, too. So really, I recommend any of the following:
   1. Pinkie toenail cancer
   2. Non-follicular leg hair cancer
   3. Wisdom teeth sarcoma
   4. Non-metastatic appendix carcinoma

Still think cancer sounds like a good idea? Might wanna go ahead and get that brain checked...