The doctor finishes the examination and says "Mr. or Ms., insert any name, you have cancer. Immediately all the horror stories that you've heard rush to the surface of your mind. Your grandfather who died of lung cancer, a cousin who had cervical cancer, all the statistics you've heard for years. Growing up in the 50s and 60s having a friend or family member with almost any type of cancer was almost always an automatic death sentence. And in most cases not a pleasant one. Frequently, the patient suffered from intense pain, some from the cancer itself and some from the side effects of the medication, radiation, or chemotherapy of the time.

As a 3 1/2 year cancer survivor, and a recent recipient of the news that I now have a different cancer, the news strikes you like a blow from a heavy weight boxer. It doesn't seem to matter how well prepared you think you are, it's a crushing blow. And speaking personally it immediately puts you into a mental and emotional tailspin. The result, at least, in my case was an immediate plunge into depression. Webster's Universal College Dictionary 2001 edition defines Depression as: 4. Psychiatry. a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal; sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason. 5. a low state of functional activity.

Being told you have cancer is bad enough, any reasonably knowledgeable person knows that regardless of the type of cancer you've got a fight on your hands. Adding depression to the equation, is to my mind, the equivalent of extending a conflict from a regional affair to a global fight. Now you're fighting a battle on to fronts, both physically and mentally. And to have a chance for a successful outcome you must win both battles.

Fortunately today cancer victims have a much broader and better choice of treatment methods. And a much better, more potent, and effective choice of drugs for doctors to choose from when treating cancer. And you have hospitals which now specialize in the treatment in the many and varied forms of cancer. All of which give the cancer patient a much better chance of survival, provided the cancer is discovered soon enough.

But, what about the depression? Yes, there are numerous drugs on the market physicians can use to treat depression. And they all work to a greater or lesser extent. Which is a start, but only a start. I don't think there is any medication, alone, which can bring an individual out of the numbing,

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