Primal scream

The hardest part of radiation is seeing the children who are being treated. Their steroid-puffed faces, sweet smiles, and haggard but sublimely supportive parents just break my heart. Today must have been the first treatment for a young boy, maybe five or six years old, and his screams echoed through the halls. This was no ordinary department-store I-want-that-video-game temper tantrum. These were blood-curdling screams fueled by outrage, fear, pain, sorrow. Everyone sitting in the waiting area knew that he was articulating -- in a primal, unearthly way -- what we all feel. Whether you're five or 35 or 75, this boy's haunting cry was the sum of everything unfair about cancer.