Show me the Money - and the Cure

I have a generous heart; it's one of my best qualities at the same time it is one of my worst enemies.  Every night I pray for my family and their health, I pray for loved ones affected by cancer hoping for it to never return, and I pray those ill or in need of some extra love.  

But this is not enough.  I believe in God and the "everything happens for a reason" mantra but at the same time, God can not cure us of incurable diseases.  We can pray for help and for miracles but in the end it's modern medicine that will decide how our health turns out.  

In order for modern medicine to work however, we need to research.  How can man cure any disease without researching methods and doing case studies?  But the down side to this is the cost.  Science is expensive so therefore finding a cure is difficult in both regards.  That is why there are charities and fundraisers all over the world each and every day.  Donate to cancer research!  Help fund the cure for AIDS!  Fight Diabetes!  Help us help our children with Autism! And the list goes on...

Remember that generous heart of mine?  I donate.  Every time I hear of someone struggling with a disease, it breaks my heart.  I can not cure them and I can barely help them.  But I know I can either send them money or send money to help fund the cure for their disease.  That measly $20 seems more important for them than for me.  No matter the cause or the donation, I want to be a part of it.  I want to share whatever I can to help those who are not as fortunate as myself (I wonder why I'm always broke...hence the "my worst enemy part").  Of course in this economy, donating money is harder than ever.  I can not commit to helping charities because we need to pay our bills and we need to live.  So it saddens me that I can't help now, but I digress...

My point here is that where is all this money going and why isn't there a cure yet!  We'll take my favorite cause for example going forward.

Cancer has hit my family hard.  My grandmother (whom I never was able to meet) passed away from breast cancer.  Both Jared's grandmother and grandfather passed away from cancer.  I lost a friend to cancer.  One of my aunts is a survivor and on of my other close aunts is a breast cancer survivor but still struggles with chemo for life.  My cousin's daughter has beat leukemia but is still having trouble with her disease.  So basically, I hate cancer.  

I can't even count the amount of money I have donated to cancer research nor can I recall how many events I've taken part in to help fundraising efforts.  Nor can I remember how many years I've celebrated October as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month at my office encouraging others to wear pink and donate to the cause.  I'm working towards the cure, many of my family and friends are, and nation-wide people are doing the same.  So where is it already?  And more importantly where, specifically is all this donated money going?

I completely understand that this is a long and very difficult process.  I've searched around the internet a little bit to see what I could and this one letter summed it up. "cancer remains a scientific and medical challenge of singular difficulty. "  But that is not helping all the people around the world struggling right now with cancer.  I want to know how long it's going to take.  I want to know how much more money is going to be involved.  How much long does a child have to wait when her mother is struggling with cancer?

I wish I had the time right now to research how much money has been raised for cancer research since fundraising began or had the time to research how many strides have been made in finding the cure.  But I don't.  I just know there has been money donated - I'd love to know where it's all going, honestly - and I know they are working on a cure.  And that's what I' m going on about here.  It doesn't matter, really, what the numbers are because honestly the cure has not arrived yet.

So anyone out there with any information or the time to research let me know.  I'm sick of hearing about our 4 year old little fireball struggling and I'm sick of seeing my aunt in pain.  And I'm also sick of hearing about all these sad cancer stories.  They should be cured by now, seriously.

So I ask again, show me where the money is going and show me the cure!