Total Biscuit's Cancer Is Back.

I have a hell of a lot of respect for Mr. John Bain, better known as "Total Biscuit". His passion for gaming, and his professionalism in covering them in various capacities--including, until now, being a team owner--gave me so much more out of this than anything I could do myself. When his cancer seemed in remission, I was relieved, and I hoped that his follow-up checks would be fine.

They weren't. It's bad. It got in his blood, so it spread, and now it's gotten to an inoperable state. He's terminal now, with 2-3 years expected before death, and with this diagnosis comes a tragedy that I am very familiar with. The medical costs, already far from sensible, are about to go straight to ludicrous. While the announcement of Axiom closing has as much to do with his team's failure to compete in a very strong Korean scene as anything else, there is no doubt that the trigger-pulling had to be influenced by the results from his tests. Mr. Bain is not a wealthy man; he is as common as it gets without descending into low-class degeneracy.

The financial costs will strain his marriage. They will strain his relationship with his son, his parents, his in-laws, and others that are dear to him. The pressure to come for his wife to take the boy, cut John loose, and run for the hills will only increase as this goes on. Mrs. Bain, Gemma, will have her character tested in a crucible most wives don't face outside of war or old age, and I hope only that what little I've seen--what they allowed outsiders like me to see--is truly indicative of who they really are when the shit hits the fan.

But most of all, I am sad for their son. John is just 31 years old. He's young. Gemma's about as young. Their son is but a school boy, and he's in a position where his own father--through no fault that any boy so young can fathom--is going to wither and die before his eyes. I saw such a thing happen to my own father, and I had the benefit of being of age when it happened, and yet I can tell you from first-hand knowledge that nothing is so terrible than to see the once-mighty symbol of what it means to be a man fracture and fail before forces beyond contention. That helplessness is a feeling I wish on no child; it haunts you for the rest of your life, and impacts what you do--and why--thereafter.

Fuck cancer. Mr. Bain, you've done me a great service over the years, and I am glad that you see this situation as not one to hit the Concede button. Make it take you down. Make it kill you. Make it pay for ever day it steals from you. You may yet lose, but if so then make them pay so dearly that it take no more thereafter.

Fuck cancer.