Doctors: What they know and don't know  

"if dad lived for 10 years after the first diagnosis, he probably was cancer free for a good part of it. just because you are cancer free doesn't mean it won't return. to say doctors don't know anything about cancer is ridiculous."

Now there's some fine logic! Let's see...just because you're "cancer-free" doesn't mean that you're really cancer-free. You've still got it, but by God, you're cancer-free until it comes back! Heh. Dad wasn't diagnosed as "cancer free" in 1985 and then lived ten years with no cancer until it suddenly returned and killed him. It was a long battle. They would proclaim, "not a cancer cell in your body" and it always came back. First it was his larnyx, then they'd have to cut something else out or off. After he died, it became a morbid joke in the family: "If we had a nickel for every time we heard the doctors tell him that he was cancer-free..." By the way, there is ZERO history of cancer in my family, before or since. The doctors never could tell us what caused dad's cancer. They experimented with different treatments with him. None was successful. He was as frustrated as we were. 

At a party twenty years after dad's death, I met dad's oncologist by chance - the man who's name was on the building of the cancer center where dad repeatedly went for treatment. I asked him specifically about that "not a cancer cell in your body, sir!" bull that we were told so often. I asked him, if it's not in our cells, then where is it? In our DNA? At some sub-cellular level? The doctor looked visibly uncomfortable and paused before answering. He said that there was a lot they just didn't know about cancer. And with that, I agreed. Doctors don't know squat about it.