The beloved comedian Gilda Radner put it best when she quipped, “Cancer gave me a membership in an elite club I’d rather not belong to.”

‘The Big C’ has been evoking fear in those on the receiving-end of the diagnoses since medicine began. Hippocrates is responsible for the name, believing that the finger-like spread of the disease resembled a crab – also the origin of the Zodiac sign. Roman physician Celsus used the term oncos, to describe a tumor, forming the root of our present-day word ‘oncology.’

Despite the advances in medicine, treatment and holistic therapies, cancer still kills around 600,000 Americans each year. When it comes to the age of its targets, it is an equal opportunity disease, affecting children, those in the their midlife or the aging Baby Boomer. It ignores the hierarchy of public life, killing some of our most iconic personalities.

Can the uncommon journey that cancer patients undergo result in anything positive? Does it offer us a new perspective on life; a vow to live every day to its fullest? Can we draw inspiration from the courageous battles waged by children and solidarity of women and men, who across the nation march for a cure every year?

Above all, the focus will be on hope and the ways we defeat ‘The Big C’ with two of humanities bigger ‘C’s: comprehension and compassion. That’s a club where we can all take pride in our membership.

Featured in this three-part series are the following segments:

Episode one: Understanding Cancer | Breast Cancer | Brain Cancer | Colon Cancer | Pancreatic Cancer | Lung Cancer

Episode two: Children’s Oncology | Progressive Treatments | Environmental Treatments | Blood Cancers

Episode three: Melanoma | Lifestyle | Financial Toxicity | Opioids vs. Weed | End of Life Care | Cancer, Go Fly a Kite!