Cancer is not just a lump that is taken away and forgotten
By Cynthia Chok Fui Man (19 Mar 2006)

Just got off the phone with mom, she was pretty upset. Her close friend, Auntie Peng passed away this morning. She had ovarian cancer; it spread to her breast and lung six months ago. Sigh! These days I shudder whenever I hear the word "Cancer". Somehow, the only word that comes to my mind when I hear that dreadful word is Death!

I was 20, when I first heard of cancer. Never heard much of it before that….come to think of it, there was this movie “Dying Young” which comes to my mind those early days…aaah so romantic. All changed when my mom’s eldest sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was not close to Auntie Gaik; in fact I’ve only seen her no more than five times up till then. She stayed in Penang all her life while my mom got married and moved to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah thirty years ago.

I can still remember vividly the visit to Penang Hospital. It was my first week in Kuala Lumpur at my hostel. Feeling terribly homesick, I was crying my eyes out because it was my first time away from home. Uncle Ling came to pick me from the hostel and we set off for a long journey to Penang. The journey was hot and long. Uncle Ling was awfully quiet the entire journey.

I recall arriving at the hospital feeling tired and feverish. Nothing could prepare me for what I saw. This woman whose eyes, nose and lips were just like my mom’s but… she was so frail and thin. As I struggle to take in what I saw, Auntie Gaik looked at me, smile and asked if I’ve eaten. I didn’t know how to respond and was speechless. That image of her, sitting in her hospital bed stayed with me till today. Something I would rather not remember to be honest.

While she engaged in small talk with my uncle, I can’t help but noticed her gaunt feature, how little hair she has left, how dark is her skin (unnaturally dark like bruises) or how she struggled with every breath she took. Until that moment I had never seen a cancer patient up close and personal. As I struggled to hold back my tears, I excused myself to go to the toilet. Looking back, I wish I had chatted with her and tried to get to know her more.

My throbbing headache is just too much to bear, must take another two painkillers. A loud thunder startled me, I decided to take the painkiller and head to bed. I read somewhere that it takes our liver a month to “cleanse” a single dose of painkiller. Gosh!

Just by thinking of “it” gives me a headache. Why I wonder? Which got me thinking, what is cancer? Me, being the IT junkie quickly keyed in the word "cancer" in www.dictionary.com. I was expecting to get a mumbo jumbo medical explanation about what cancer is. Unexpectedly, it returned with quite a few entries. Didn't know there were so many explanations for it.

I was even more surprised to read the first entry:-

CANCER:-

1. The fourth sign of the zodiac in astrology. In all senses also called Crab.

2. Any of various malignant neoplasms characterized by the proliferation of anaplastic cells that tend to invade surrounding tissue and metastasize to new body sites.

3. A pernicious spreading evil: A cancer of bigotry spread through the community.

Wow! I’m so amazed with my own “blindness”… I was just thinking, if I ask a young child perhaps they would associate the word Cancer with the horoscope as well. I must remind myself about this….

I just love technology, being able get information you need anytime anywhere. How I wish this technology was available during Auntie Gaik’s time. A sense of sadness overwhelms me. Perhaps….just perhaps the outcome would be different.

Auntie Gaik was not highly educated and was single all her life. She shared with no one about her condition. In fact, it was not until the pain was unbearable that she finally went to see a male doctor and showed him her breasts. I can only imagine the kind of fear and embarrassment that she must have felt.

Till this very day, we somehow have this twisted idea that cancer ONLY happens to bad people as a form of punishment. If that is even remotely true, then there must be lots of bad people around us these days because there are just too many people stricken or dying of cancer. Hmm…what a thought!

Auntie Gaik finally succumbed to her illness a long hard year after she had a double mastectomy. When I got that call, I was secretly relieved at the fact that she no longer has to suffer. Till this day, I’m still ashamed of myself for that thought.

Eleven years has gone by, more and more people that I know have ‘left’. Suddenly I feel extremely angry, angry with the fact that there is no cure yet for cancer. How many more people have to die????

At that moment of insanity, a wild thought came across my mind. I, Cynthia Chok from this day onward will not spell cancer as cancer. I shall spell it as CanSur-vive! I will take it upon myself to encourage my loved ones, my friends or colleagues to go for a yearly checkup and seek professional opinion whenever they feel there is something not right with their body. The only way to win this ‘war’ is through early diagnosis and getting early treatment. Awareness is the key prevention. With that more CanSur-vive!

 

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