Alva Review-Courier -

I'm appreciative that people are still sending cards/letters wishing me well in my chemo fights; but what is more important is the number of friends and relatives who have had cancer and survived. I didn't realize or had forgotten there were so many.

In the past, I've been one of those people who've done too many of those socially automatic replies when asked, “How are you doing,” with my programmed answer being the “Oh, I'm just fine, how are you?” and then moving on.

It's a safe mid-America way of being friendly while not committing too much time. Unfortunately, all of us have a f...