Vanj
My family has had their share of cancer stories. My mother's sister died of cervical cancer when I was in 5th Grade. She was brought back home from the US after she was diagnosed. I have listened to my mother and the rest of the family talk about how she had suffered through most of the symptoms but how she had not sought immediate medical attention. My maternal grandfather had prostate cancer.
Growing up, what I had feared most had been to be struck with cancer. I had been very careful, seeing my OB-GYN for all the regular check-ups once a year. Moving to the US has reinforced healthy living. I now am able to manage the kind of food that I eat, trying to stay clear of salty, oily and high carb foods that I have grown up with. I go to the gym regularly, not just to tone my body but to make sure my heart muscles are strong enough to pump blood through my system.
I have known many people close to me get struck with cancer. I think the first reaction to news about someone being diagnosed with the big C is sympathy. Somehow I have equated cancer with a death sentence.
Slowly, I have come to understand that cancer becomes a death sentence when it is diagnosed at its late stage, when the disease has metastasized and has afflicted other organs. My brother is a doctor and I have learned that many illnesses including cancer doesn't have to be a death sentence especially if it is diagnosed soon enough for medical intervention.
Still, I have actively immersed myself with many causes to promote funding for further research of cancer, breast cancer specially. Since 2002, I have joined the 8 mile Breast Cancer Walk by the American Cancer Society in Central Park very October. I have done it not for anyone in particular, just the hope that by the time I, or my sister, or my daughter or my mom or anyone that I love get sick, there would have been more hope in terms of surviving the big C.
When I returned from Manila this January, my sister broke the news to me that her best friend Vangie had breast cancer. Vangie was diagnosed in December, so that cancer became her sort-of Christmas gift. I was devastated. Vangie is younger than my sister, she is just 36 years old.
The immediate question had been: why her? And my sister Gigi asks the same questions. Vangie is the most obsessive compulsive in terms of cleanliness and health consciousness. She is the epitome of the person who lives the clean life.
I guess in the lottery of fate each of us are dealt with a handful of cards that we sometimes hope we don't deserve. Who decides, anyways, what we deserve? And if you are given a bad hand, it is in how you play them that will make for a win or a loss.
Vangie has started a blog of how she is coping with her new life. Gigi got the link this morning and shared it with me as I was leaving for work. In between the meetings for the morning, I had the chance to browse through her entries and I am pleasantly amazed, proud even for her strength.
Vangie has taken the sharp turn in her journey through life with a purpose, not hopelessness. She battles the cancer that plagues her body and sees each step toward a process to a new lease in life. She has become involved not just in healing herself but sharing each episode with others who may have the same plight.
To be striken with cancer can be the most devastating event in someone's life. You can either conquer it with a positive attitude or surrender to the depths of dark despair. Hope is easier to grasp when there is sunshine gleaming on your face and you won't see sun sitting in the corner of your room feeling sorry for yourself.
Vangie's beauty shines through eyes that see the world for all the hope it will bring. She has been fortunate to bask in the love of family and friends who have showered her with support at trying times. For me, though, reading through her blog, she has just nudged me back to reality how trivial the things I have been worrying about lately. I read through her stories and imagine her laughter and how we used to have fun together at home when she came to visit, and the New year's she stayed with us with her white Honda Civic with the name (which I forgot).
I feel envious. I ask myself if I would have had her strength if I were in her shoes. And I feel blessed because I know her enough to know that she will be fine and that she would go through this and live to tell her story.
This October I am walking 5 miles in Central Park. And I will be walking for a friend who has survived cancer: Vangie Khu.
Her blog: http://vangiekhu.blogspot.com/
Growing up, what I had feared most had been to be struck with cancer. I had been very careful, seeing my OB-GYN for all the regular check-ups once a year. Moving to the US has reinforced healthy living. I now am able to manage the kind of food that I eat, trying to stay clear of salty, oily and high carb foods that I have grown up with. I go to the gym regularly, not just to tone my body but to make sure my heart muscles are strong enough to pump blood through my system.
I have known many people close to me get struck with cancer. I think the first reaction to news about someone being diagnosed with the big C is sympathy. Somehow I have equated cancer with a death sentence.
Slowly, I have come to understand that cancer becomes a death sentence when it is diagnosed at its late stage, when the disease has metastasized and has afflicted other organs. My brother is a doctor and I have learned that many illnesses including cancer doesn't have to be a death sentence especially if it is diagnosed soon enough for medical intervention.
Still, I have actively immersed myself with many causes to promote funding for further research of cancer, breast cancer specially. Since 2002, I have joined the 8 mile Breast Cancer Walk by the American Cancer Society in Central Park very October. I have done it not for anyone in particular, just the hope that by the time I, or my sister, or my daughter or my mom or anyone that I love get sick, there would have been more hope in terms of surviving the big C.
When I returned from Manila this January, my sister broke the news to me that her best friend Vangie had breast cancer. Vangie was diagnosed in December, so that cancer became her sort-of Christmas gift. I was devastated. Vangie is younger than my sister, she is just 36 years old.
The immediate question had been: why her? And my sister Gigi asks the same questions. Vangie is the most obsessive compulsive in terms of cleanliness and health consciousness. She is the epitome of the person who lives the clean life.
I guess in the lottery of fate each of us are dealt with a handful of cards that we sometimes hope we don't deserve. Who decides, anyways, what we deserve? And if you are given a bad hand, it is in how you play them that will make for a win or a loss.
Vangie has started a blog of how she is coping with her new life. Gigi got the link this morning and shared it with me as I was leaving for work. In between the meetings for the morning, I had the chance to browse through her entries and I am pleasantly amazed, proud even for her strength.
Vangie has taken the sharp turn in her journey through life with a purpose, not hopelessness. She battles the cancer that plagues her body and sees each step toward a process to a new lease in life. She has become involved not just in healing herself but sharing each episode with others who may have the same plight.
To be striken with cancer can be the most devastating event in someone's life. You can either conquer it with a positive attitude or surrender to the depths of dark despair. Hope is easier to grasp when there is sunshine gleaming on your face and you won't see sun sitting in the corner of your room feeling sorry for yourself.
Vangie's beauty shines through eyes that see the world for all the hope it will bring. She has been fortunate to bask in the love of family and friends who have showered her with support at trying times. For me, though, reading through her blog, she has just nudged me back to reality how trivial the things I have been worrying about lately. I read through her stories and imagine her laughter and how we used to have fun together at home when she came to visit, and the New year's she stayed with us with her white Honda Civic with the name (which I forgot).
I feel envious. I ask myself if I would have had her strength if I were in her shoes. And I feel blessed because I know her enough to know that she will be fine and that she would go through this and live to tell her story.
This October I am walking 5 miles in Central Park. And I will be walking for a friend who has survived cancer: Vangie Khu.
Her blog: http://vangiekhu.blogspot.com/