Wedding-crasher cancer diagnosis

More Americans survive cancer. But the psychological impacts can persist for years

… studying to become a social worker. ¶After an abnormal result on her Pap smear, her doctor brought her back in to check for abnormal tissue. … six weeks of radiation and chemotherapy. …additional chemotherapy, which had more side effects. ¶It was physically exhausting. But she was also struggling psychologically, as she watched her friends hit significant adult milestones. ¶"My friends were getting married, …"

There's a shameful “smear” to tarnish a woman's reputation and an official diagnosis delivered almost as if it were a service of legal process of sorts.

Then the punishing regimen of highly toxic chemotherapy with dangerous and harmful ionizing radiation.

The appointments and psychological counseling offered to go with it. And all the medical insurance bills to pay. The whole "experience" of it as such.

If there's a barroom cancer diagnosis on a last night out with the ladies — that's a wedding-crasher and a host of services offered by doctors to wedding-crashers to torture their victims as patients.

Is cancer a thing or not? Was it ever a thing at any time before the 1970s? Or is it too ill-defined to merit the extreme and harsh treatments offered?