"Out, damned spot! out, I say!"--Lady Macbeth, Macbeth Act V, Scene I     It has been a year of cancer....so Lady Macbeth's comment seems a fitting way for me to express the year. C-A-N-C-E-R, the "damned spot" that has touched my family and shaken us to our cores. (yes, I know a paragraph is not two sentences.)     In May, my dad underwent stem cell harvesting for his youngest brother, who was battling mantle cell lymphoma for the second time. The harvesting went FANTASTIC as Dad produced more than seven million stem cells, more than twice the number my uncle needed. The transplant  was a success. The doctors were amazed at how well my uncle was improving and his cancer was losing the battle.        Then Labor Day came, the family cook-out at my aunt and uncle's house. We were celebrating the holiday, family and my uncle's successful transplant. This would be the last time I would see my uncle alive, laughing, talking and enjoying our family time. Less than two weeks later, he was gone. In November, my aunt learned the results of his autopsy. Cancer did NOT beat him! His lungs were damaged by the radiation prior to his transplant. It was something that could not be reversed.       While our family dealt with this void in our lives, we were hit with another blow, my dad's mother was found to have a cancerous spot on one of her lungs. She never smoked, so this was a shock I learned at Thanksgiving! Her surgery to remove this is just after the new year. A year ago, she had a skin cancer removed from the top of her head, she has a slight bald spot where the cancer was removed, but hats cover it well. Then to round out the "damned spot" year, my dad's remaining brother was found to have a spot on his spleen.  According to his doctor, it is non-cancerous, but until it is out and biopsied, I do not think the family will relax.       Lady Macbeth may have been slowly going insane when that famous line was spoken, but it just fits the feelings I have about cancer right now and frankly, I'm ready for 2013 to be here. The end of 2012 was a time that I do not wish to revisit or remember, but I know I will.