Quotes & Sayings About Cancer Diagnosis

My wife Cecily Adams was dying of cancer, my daughter Madeline was struggling to overcome an autism diagnosis, and my father was dying, all at the same time. Writing the journal was a cathartic experience, and an extremely positive one. — Jim Beaver

When you have a diagnosis of cancer, or any serious illness, your choices are basically to be passive and kind of accept whatever is offered you, or to be active and to learn about your disease, and understand your options, and be an active partner with your doctor. That's the course I took with all three of my cancers. — Hamilton Jordan

We know that childhood and adolescence are the most crucial times for environmental stimuli to affect breast cancer risk, but changes made during adulthood and even after diagnosis still have the potential to create positive changes in the body. — Joel Fuhrman

It's kind of funny. When I got my diagnosis - cancer - I said to myself, 'Why me?' And then, the other day, when I got the good news, I said the same thing. — Walter White

Anyone who's lost someone to cancer will say this, that you have to struggle to try to remember the person before the diagnosis happened, because they really do change - as anyone would change. — Mindy Kaling

Most breast cancer-related deaths can be prevented through simple and painless preventive measures. A late diagnosis can result in more serious, long-term consequences. — Olympia Snowe

I attacked my cancer diagnosis the same way I attack training and competing, and that's pretty fearless. — Eric Shanteau

Initially, after David's diagnosis, I would cringe when I read
books or articles by cancer survivors who stated that cancer had
been a gift in their lives. How could all that David endured be
viewed as a gift? The invasive surgery, the weeks of chemotherapy
and radiation: a gift?
Yet, after the cancer, David would often reach for my hand and
say, "If it is cancer that is responsible for our new relationship, then
it was all worth it." And I'd reluctantly agree that cancer had been a
gift in our lives. We'd both seen the other alternative: patients and
survivors who had become bitter and angry, and neither one of us
wanted to become that. — Mary Potter Kenyon

After my cancer diagnosis, I really took my swimming to a new level. — Eric Shanteau

It was part of the reason I almost didn't go public with my diagnosis - I was embarrassed. I felt, 'Oh, I've always talked about exercising. And I got cancer.' And then I realized it's a great example of showing that cancer can hit anyone at any time. — Robin Roberts

The late Christopher Hitchens had the professional contrarian's fixation on attacking sacred cows, and rather soon after his cancer diagnosis, he became one himself. — Alex Pareene

I was diagnosed with an early, early stage of prostate cancer. I was almost a vegetarian then. I was heading that direction. What pushed me over the edge, was the doctor who did the diagnosis. He said in a discussion about prostate cancer that he had never seen a vegetarian with prostate cancer. And this is not a holistic doctor, this is a regular, mainstream doctor. And I was just blown away. — Michael Dorn

A science can diagnose a cancer and can even find a cure for it, but it can't, and a scientist will be the first to say, it's can't help you to deal with the stress and disappointment and terror that comes with a diagnosis, and nor can it help you to die well, like Socrates, kindly, not railing against faith, but in possession of your own death. For these imponderable questions people have turned to mythos. — Karen Armstrong

Jobs's intensity was also evident in his ability to focus. He would set priorities, aim his laser attention on them, and filter out distractions. If something engaged him- the user interface for the original Macintosh, the design of the iPod and iPhone, getting music companies into the iTunes Store-he was relentless. But if he did not want to deal with something - a legal annoyance, a business issue, his cancer diagnosis, a family tug- he would resolutely ignore it. That focus allowed him to say no. He got Apple back on track by cutting all except a few core products. He made devices simpler by eliminating buttons, software simpler by eliminating features, and interfaces simpler by eliminating options.
He attributed his ability to focus and his love of simplicity to his Zen training. It honed his appreciation for intuition, showed him how to filter out anything that was distracting or unnecessary, and nurtured in him an aesthetic based on minimalism. — Walter Isaacson

I think the stigma attached to mental illness will disappear just like it did for cancer years ago. — Sally Graham

When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, my middle school friends and myself really had no idea the impact of that diagnosis, but my family did. — Jenna Morasca

Thaddeus knew again what it felt like to be living a life that was totally out of control. Which is something a cancer diagnosis can do in an eye blink. You don't know what it means, you're threatened and scared to death, and you lack all the information you'll need to try to pull yourself — John Ellsworth

Before my diagnosis [cancer] I was a competitor but not a fierce competitor. When I was diagnosed, that turned me into a fighter. — Lance Armstrong

I can tell that in Refuge the question that was burning in me was, how do we find refuge in change? Everything around me that was familiar had been turned inside out with my mother's diagnosis of ovarian cancer and with the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge being flooded. — Terry Tempest Williams

Life should not be an endurance event. No prestigious job, well-appointed house, or luxury vacation is worth your emotional, mental and, yes, physical health. In fact, the abrupt loss of all of these things through a cancer diagnosis can be the wake-up call that forces you to identify and begin correcting the things that aren't working in your life. — Susan Barbara Apollon

Like so many of life's varieties of experience, the novelty of a diagnosis of malignant cancer has a tendency to wear off. The thing begins to pall, even to become banal. One can become quite used to the specter of the eternal Footman, like some lethal old bore lurking in the hallway at the end of the evening, hoping for the chance to have a word. And I don't so much object to his holding my coat in that marked manner, as if mutely reminding me that it's time to be on my way. No, it's the snickering that gets me down. — Christopher Hitchens

Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. But now I knew it acutely. — Paul Kalanithi

Just when you think you're coming out and you think, 'OK, I see the light at the end of the tunnel,' then I got this diagnosis. — Dana Reeve

The Bible diagnoses the cancer of all cancers and prescribes the cure of all cures. — Ray Comfort

In retrospect, I have devoted my scientific life mainly to the question to what extent infectious agents contribute to human cancer, trusting that this will contribute to novel modes of cancer prevention, diagnosis and, hopefully, later on, also to cancer therapy. — Harald Zur Hausen

We are survivors from the moment of diagnosis. — Peter Jennings

Yes, I was mad at God because of the cancer diagnosis. I thought I should have been protected because of the work I do in the world. — Debbie Ford

The physician who waits until dead certain of a diagnosis before acting is likely to wind up with a dead patient. Sometimes things develop so rapidly that only early action-back when you're still somewhat uncertain-stands a chance of being effective, as in catching cancer before it metastasizes. — Joel Garreau

When I went public with my breast cancer diagnosis six weeks ago, the overwhelming outpouring of love, prayers and support really helped me heal faster. I want to make sure to thank everyone. — Giuliana Rancic

What I quickly learned after my diagnosis is that the world of a cancer patient has many parts and a good deal of uncertainty. — Tom Brokaw

We take life for granted, sleepwalking until a shattering event knocks us awake. Zen says, don't wait until the car accident, the cancer diagnosis, or the death of a loved one to get your priorities straight. Do it now. — Philip Toshio Sudo

It's easier when the patient is ninety-four, in the last stages of dementia, with a severe brain bleed. But for someone like me - a thirty-six-year-old given a diagnosis of terminal cancer - there aren't really words. — Paul Kalanithi

You hear the word 'cancer,' and you think it is a death sentence. In fact, the shock is the biggest thing about a diagnosis of cancer. — Clare Balding

I just took [my cancer diagnosis] as bad luck, basically. It did strike me almost immediately, my atheist sort of thing kicked in and I thought "ha, if I was a God-botherer, I'd be thinking, why me God? What have I done to deserve this?" and I thought at least I'm free of that, at least I can simply treat it as bad luck and get on with it. — Iain M. Banks

It's unconscionable that cancer patients get the wrong diagnosis 30 percent of the time and that it takes so long to treat them with appropriate drugs for their cancer. — Patrick Soon-Shiong

When you receive a cancer diagnosis, you're more vulnerable than at any other time in your life. I've personally had the experience twice. My only hope for survival was alternatives. But that was my decision, what I thought was best for me. — Suzanne Somers

Someone like me shouldnt be diagnosed with breast cancer, thats what was going through my mind. I wasnt thinking about a diagnosis. I was just doing what I was supposed to do, which was staying on top of my mammograms. It was a shock. — Sheryl Crow

If she'd been bleeding in the street, you would've run to get help. It's the same thing!"
"Typical," I could hear you saying back. "The whole point is that I wasn't bleeding in the street . I wasn't dying of cancer. You couldn't take an X-ray and see what was wrngsithme. You couldn't make such an easy diagnosis. You had to guess. And everybody guessed wrong."
But the things is, I hadn't even made the guess. I trusted that you knew what you were doing.
You were very convincing.
And I destroyed you. — David Levithan

I told Augustus the broad outline of my miracle: diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer when I was thirteen. (I didn't tell him that the diagnosis came three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You're a woman. Now die.) — John Green

Thanks to the scientific method, most people in "developed" countries have an outlook of mild deism. We assume things like weather and disease operate according to fixed natural laws. Every so often, though, problems impinge on us so directly that we stretch beyond that mildly deistic stance and ask God to intervene. When a drought drags on too long, we pray for rain. When a young mother gets a diagnosis of cervical cancer, we solicit prayers for her healing. We beseech God as if trying to talk God into something God otherwise might not want to do. — Philip Yancey

The health dollar is very precious. When someone has such a bad condition as brain cancer, we know they're going to die and they're usually going to die within 12 months of diagnosis. They cost a lot of money to keep the patient alive for that period of time. Is it really worth it? — Charles Teo

For people who are afraid to talk about cancer, for people who are afraid to communicate with their loved ones about it, and for the people who want to pretend cancer doesn't exist, either delaying diagnosis or not getting regular checkups, the consequences can be fatal. Doing nothing about cancer will kill you. — Marlee Matlin

I always tell people I'm grateful for my cancer diagnosis because it was the greatest gift because it completely changed my life. I was able to stop and let my whole life and world just crash over me like a wave. And I stood there and went, 'Wow.' And for the first time, I stopped everything. I had to. — Melissa Etheridge

Obviously, it wasn't meant for me to die of cancer at 40. Every day my life surprises me, just like my cancer diagnosis surprised me. But you roll with it. That's our job as humans. — Edie Falco

Ever since her diagnosis, she's been fading like a light bulb with cancer's hand on the rotary dimmer. — Danielle Esplin