Oh, I don't doubt it. But given the inherently absurd nature of cancer (rogue cells enthusiastically bringing about their own demise by killing the host in which they are running amok) why WOULDN'T you take that approach? Was anyone huffy enough to scold your late father for it?

When I sat and read a friend's copy of Susan Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor", it was this weird, "oh, I'm not the only person who noticed that" feeling. We have always been weird about cancer, even now when we know what it is.