Too many. My mom was almost the hardest- she got melanoma before doctors really knew what to look for, and while she lasted almost 14 years after that, it was hard. The last few years were hell- we'd been told that she'd developed early onset Alzheimers (which was common in her family), but her melanoma had spread to her brain, and everywhere else.

Worse was when my (then) 8 year old daughter got cancer- originally we were told (pre-surgery) that we should make end of life plans for her, but fortunately she ended up with a very treatable cancer, and she's 11 years clear now. But seeing babies and toddlers die of cancer in the year that we were in the pediatric cancer ward was tough, and because my daughter's been involved with a pediatric cancer camp since then, every year we see kids that we've known for years die. One of the saddest things that I've ever seen was a little boy who was born with an adrenal tumour- we met him when he was 3, and he'd spent 2 nights outside of the hospital before he died at 4 years of age. And Katie B and Hannah who were on my daughter's floor- they were both diagnosed with leukemia when they were less than a year old, and while both of them had every treatment possible at the time, they both died before they were 5. One of the weird things that you learn after spending time in a cancer ward is that kids adjust to whatever their 'normal' is. I'd never thought of an IV stand as anything but a royal pain, but the kids who couldn't walk far would hop up on the base and just be towed around the hospital- we even had 'races' with the parents towing their kids along the ward.

And now that I'm 50, it seems like every few months we know someone with a new diagnosis. It's almost rote now- if it's not a friend or a family member, it's a family member of a friend. You arrange rides, take food, clean up puke, fight with doctors, babysit parents and kids, go to funerals, hopefully have all-clear parties... it just seems like it never stops. My brother and I keep pretty close tabs on each other- we both have moles/chunks removed every year or two, but fortunately melanoma awareness is so ingrained in us and in our doctors now that we're probably going to avoid it.