Beautiful words, from an amazing melanoma warrior, and friend~

This is part of a post made by a dear friend of mine on the MIF forum.  If he can preserve such an inspirational attitude and appreciation for all that is good, after all that he has endured....there is absolutely NO excuse for the rest of us.  With his blessing.....

[Regarding] Pati's husband sorrowful post - very powerful and sad. She was so compassionate and smart, a real fighter and alive human being.

This fight to find good treatments for advanced melanoma is extremely frustrating, often unfair, filled with blind alleys, and at the same time more hopeful than it's ever been. We can be driven into making choices we never thought we'd consider out of a lack of reasonable alternatives. It feels terrible to have one's oncologist say, "I'm sorry but I have nothing more to offer you." And we can wish for pharmas, the FDA, etc. to make decisions on promising drug development more rapidly (and compassionately), but in many cases that's simply not how things work - often very depressing.

We have a lot of fallen warriors, a lot of wonderful and very real souls who have not made it, but there are increasing numbers who are, for whatever reasons, coping and making this more of a chronic disease state. So in spite of it all, there really is hope now.

Take good care, and make your days special,

Jonathan

Your words did much to ease my heart, my friend.  Pati would be proud.  Hugs - c