A Ballad

This is the author's story of his battle with cancer and his thoughts and fears on first hearing those dreadful words, "You've got cancer". Each cancer patient has to deal with their dilemma in their own way. This story is written in a poetic ballad format, which was so effectively used by Oscar Wilde in his "The Ballad of Reading Goal", which he wrote in 1897.

Oscar's Ballad narrates the story of his imprisonment and his observations and thoughts toward a fellow inmate who is to be hanged. They are "like two doomed ships that pass in a storm", a fitting analogy for cancer patients as they deal with their treatment while still attempting to live like normal human beings in society.