Cancer has struck our family. My step father died at the end of the year from small cell lung cancer. He passed at home. It was very quick, but it was awful. Towards the end he was so weak but in so much pain he kept crawling out of his hospital bed we had set up in my living room and I would have to pick him up off the floor. Finally I started sleeping on a cot in the living room to ensure he didn't hurt himself. Mean while one of my sisters is struggling with cancer, and my mother has been in and out of the hospital since he died, with repeated bouts of pneumonia. I had always heard how cancer ravages a family but I never realized the emotional, mental, and spiritual toll it takes on people. Not to mention the financial toll. This year has changed us all.