Every year in America, close to two million people are diagnosed with cancer of one kind or another. And every year, some six hundred thousand of us die of the disease.

So cancer is very much with us… all around us… part of the lives we live together, and a big part of the billions Americans spend each year on health care.

Every sufferer, every survivor, has a story that’s broadly shared, and at the same time as individual as your thumbprint.

Let me tell you mine. I'm Ray Suarez. At a time in my life when I thought I already had plenty of challenges, cancer threw a new and heavy weight on the pile. Let me tell you my story.

Listen. Subscribe: The Things I Thought About When My Body Was Trying to Kill Me. Wherever you get your podcasts.