I shared about a friend with aggressive cancer in my last post. Things do not look good, and it will likely be an increasingly difficult journey for him. In this post, I want to share the story of another friend.
She is a colleague turned friend. She’s in her 40s when I first know her and she’s someone who loves life and lives it to the best that she can, travelling and enjoying new experiences regularly. She discovered she had lung cancer some 4 to 5 years ago during a routine check-up. On her doctor’s advice, she underwent surgery to remove it. Within a short time, the cancer returned, and she had to go through a second operation to remove more of her lung. Things did not improve. A little over a year later, the cancer spread to her brain, and she had to undergo at least two more operations to remove the tumours.
Despite all this, she remained cheerful, changed jobs, learned new things, built new skills and, above all, continued travelling. I have consistently met up with her for meals over the past few years, wanting to keep myself abreast of her condition and to encourage her as much as I can. During one of our meet-ups, she shared that she refused to surrender to her cancer, wanted to live her life as fully as possible and on her own terms. Above all, she would not want people see and treat her as a sick person. Yet, she recognised that her days are numbered and had made plans for her eventual demise. She is now on an experimental treatment, and her tumour growth has slowed.
I admire her courage and her love for life.
No comments:
Post a Comment