October is cancer month. Although being a cancer survivor for the past 19 years, I just found out about this via Facebook when my friend Denis Oakley posted this on his Facebook status. It reads, "October is cancer month. In memory of every cancer patient, family member and friend who has lost their battle with cancer and in honor of those who continue to conquer it! Put this up for 1 hour if you love someone who has or had cancer. Many won't copy and paste, I did. Will you?"
Let's light the luminara lantern for the fight against the Big C...With no hesitation, I copied and pasted on my status too hoping others will follow. Perhaps it didn't get notice immediately, but it slowly got momentum in the afternoon and by evening, I can see lots of my friends posting it on their status. Way to go!
Besides that, I even receive some messages especially from my high school mates that knew what I had gone through as a 12 year old kid. I was really suprised by this as I though I have lost contact with them, except for some close ones who are among my Facebook contacts.
Being diagnosed by Rhabdomyosarcoma amd going under the knife for the first time at the age of 12, things were looking fuzzy for the kid in me that time. Though I know what was going on, I wasn't prepare for what I was going to go through. The war for the next 3 years, life has been painful and horrible. Not only physically tormenting, it was an emotionally hurting one too. I was looked from a different point of view by many others for I do look "different". And things did not settle down for the next 10 years for subsequent checkups needs to be done for a fear of relapse. But I survived it.
Surviving it is one story. Living through it, is another. Life has change for me ever since then. I'm no longer the same person before being diagnosed. I may be 31 years old this year but the body seems to feel older and weaker. Some friends see me as a mentally strong person after having gone through this, but I know I'm not. I'm just wearing a mask. I may have once won a championship, ran several marathons and ultra marathons, but to be honest, I'm just a nobody. I don't feel great at all!
Cancer has changed my life tremendously and I'm not liking it. For the past 19 years, I have been living in the shadows of myself. I may have escape hell, but I'm living in a nightmare of my own now. I dislike my life and for what I have become today. Though I do feel proud of my own achievements but sometimes looking back, I wish I had more. I wish I was living a normal person. Today, I live the life as a cancer survivor bearing the scars from the war which I triumph. Whether I like it or not, for what I became today and how I felt all these while, I am certainly who I am today. Nothing can be change...
That's me...
2 comments:
You've cone a long way Frank and no one can say otherwise. You've battled the odds, be very proud of it as well as yourself. Got a long road ahead of you, @tand tall ya
Hi Frank! My father passed away because of cancer. Well, he was a smoker and he succumbed to cancer after only less than 6 months diagnosed with it. But he went away peacefully.
Its time for reflection. Thank you for sharing.
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