Five years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. The doctor said it was chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a form of leukemia. It happened a few months after my retirement. I was 61 years old then. My last job was stressful. We were building a condominium, and time was of the essence. Any delay would trigger a massive penalty. It was normal to work up to 12 hours a day, and to keep myself awake, I took a lot of painkillers. A few months after retirement, I had chronic pain in my stomach, and most of the time I just ignored it, but one day I was told after visiting a doctor that it might be something worse than typical stomach pain. So she referred me to a hospital. Because the pain was unbearable, the hospital did some routine tests. I was told I had perforated appendix and would require an emergency operation. I was dead lucky; I was operated on the same day as my admission and had to stay in the intensive care unit for almost a week. During that time, I had to undergo various medical test...
Posts
4th February Is World Cancer Day
4th February Is World Cancer Day. image from cancer.org.au World Cancer Day is a global initiative led by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). It raises awareness worldwide about cancer. Imagine a world without cancer, where everyone has access to life-saving cancer treatment and cancer care is available to everyone - no matter who you are or where you live. Read more about Union For International Cancer Control HERE
What would your reactions be if a doctor said you had cancer and might not have long to live?
What would your reactions be if a doctor said you had cancer and might not have long to live? In my case, my first reaction was WHY ME? There were seven or eight billions people in this world and why it had to be me. Why not someone else? In other words, I could not accept the fact that I had cancer. And for the first few days I had difficulty with sleeping and constantly moody and depressed. When I searched the internet and found out my type of cancer was incurable the situation became worse. I felt like my soul was pulled away from my body. Before I was discharged the doctor told me my cancer had yet to reach serious stage, and the thing that calmed me the most when he said some people survived for 20 years or more for this type of cancer. Further, I didn't even need to undergo chemotherapy unless it get worse. He told me it might be incurable but chemotherapy could control it from getting worse. And I was advised to come straight to the hospital if I started to lose weight ba...
Only Other People Get Cancer
Prior to my hospital admission, I had never been hospitalized. I don't claim to be a superhuman since I get sick now and then, but a visit to a clinic would normally cure my fever, cold, and so on. My other serious illness was during the COVID pandemic (long after my bout with cancer), but even then I was told to quarantine myself at home, and the COVID went away after about 10 days. Before I was diagnosed with blood cancer, I knew very little about cancer. Mainly because no one in my family has had cancer before. My knowledge about cancer was limited to lung cancer, probably because I had a few friends who passed away because of lung cancer. And another reason is that my father died due to a lung infection. Only after I was diagnosed with cancer did I become curious about this disease called cancer and why it killed (and still kills) millions of people, World Health Organisation put the cancer death as 10 millions a year second only to heart attack. I read here and there ab...