Cancer: I doubt you're getting several love letters this Romantic Days Celebration. Don't get excited -- that is not one, often. But last month since you paid my Valentine a call, I'd want to obtain a few points off my chest. Our story was complicated enough without you. We met toward the conclusion of our senior year of high school and really hit it off, simply to keep for schools countless miles apart just a couple short months later. We tried the cross country point, which I believe even you'd say was a poor idea. It only ever got harder. We tried keeping in contact while we dated other people without much luck, and we eventually drifted into what we now fondly reference as "radio silence" before reconnecting at a good friend's wedding (clichA, I know) in 2011. We'll never really know when during 2012 you snuck in, but you made yourself known just as I was beginning to really get comfortable in our rekindled us-ness (which, I should note, remains long-distance). It was nearly three days after I had determined that all along, he was usually the one I had been searching for -- a slap in the facial skin of a memory not to get too comfortable. Obviously, I'm not allowing myself to believe that people don't have forever. You're more straightforward to eliminate in testicular type, even when you constantly knock on our door. I simply wish you'd stop knocking. I used to have this fear about him, he couldn't possibly be right for me personally mainly because we met in senior high school. I still cringe at the word "high school sweethearts." But my relationship panic comes today from the world of much less-familiar territory. We have learned words I never thought I had complete -- "orchiectomy" being the most jarring. When before I would just laugh off the notion of children we've had straight-faced talks about fertility. We have even had to speak -- although fleetingly -- about how precisely in the future, health and life insurance might get dirty. And while the doctors say you've let him be for the present time, my mind swirls with research. He has of a 1 in 775,000 potential for being struck by lightning. He's about a 1 in 5,000 possibility of being killed in a car accident. He's about a 1 in 10,000,000 possibility of becoming the leader some time. But there's a chance that you get back to visit, the doctors say. A 20 % chance that his surgery was not enough and that he'll need additional therapy. And in the meantime, MRIs and CT scans four times annually for the following five years, each session just a little bubble of worry ready to rush. The medical practioners, our families, my friends tell us these are great odds. And by cancer requirements, they are. Even when he does require radiation or chemotherapy or more surgery, he is still better off than most of the men and women you terrorize. I can not pretend to learn the smallest thing about the endless questions we are blessed not to possess to handle, or what reading the words "Stage IV" must feel like, or what the ladies for the reason that place -- standing by their men when their men can no further stand -- are going right on through. But that will not mean a one-in-five chance of viewing your ugly face again makes me feel great. You understand who is feeling great, although? Him. As soon as he decided to voice his concerns by what you're doing to his body, he is been a model patient. My Valentine has been so brave, reassuring me when I am frightened of you! He's laughed in hideous hospital clothes at the irritation of your visit landing right between Christmas and New Year's, and at the disbelief that he had never had blood drawn ahead of your tricks. Why I have made a decision to create, in the place of only curse you alone you might wonder. You're right, writing to you certainly will not make him better. But there is a tiny chance it may resonate with someone recognizing a change in his own body and persuade his concerns to be brought by him to his doctor. This indicates if you ask me that men, and young men particularly, often avoid making appointments to be poked and prodded. It's my hope that after looking over this, other young men, like my Valentine, won't wait any more. Therefore, while I will not say it's been specifically "nice" to generally meet you, I did want to send this valentine to you of types to let you know that you have certainly created me -- and us -- tougher. Therefore thanks for that, I suppose. I hope I never see you again, Dorothy Seven days after surgery: Follow Sarah Klein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sarklei
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