Caitlin Flanagan has been a cancer survivor for 20 years. She wrote the following in "I’LL TELL YOU THE SECRET OF CANCER: It’s been almost 20 years since my diagnosis, and I’ve learned quite a bit:

When I began to understand that attitude doesn’t have anything to do with survival, I felt myself coming up out of deep water. I didn’t cause my cancer by having a bad attitude, and I wasn’t going to cure it by having a good one. And then Coscarelli told me the whole truth about cancer. If you’re ready, I will tell it to you. Cancer occurs when a group of cells divide in rapid and abnormal ways. Treatments are successful if they interfere with that process. That’s it, that’s the whole equation.