On: Cancer

 Cancer is such a big, scary word. It didn't feel like a real thing until it happened to my closest ones.

The first time I heard that my mom was diagnosed with cancer years ago, I couldn't make sense of it, couldn't comprehend how was it possible for her to have something as scary as cancer? Doesn't it only happen to people in books or films? I thought. Thus, to learn to live with it was the only choice we got. It wasn't the easiest years, but we hold on and on and on (with the fear, the anxiety of the worst outcome). We learned acceptance like never before. 

Anyway, to be a caregiver means I was all familiar with the anxiety of waiting outside the surgery room, of hearing regular check up reports, whether or not the treatments work on her. But it's not until I went to college that cancer provoked my anxiety at the utmost. Not only did I have to see my mom going through it, the cancer also decided to stay in my cousin's body (she's also my closest, closest cousin). At that moment, I had to face the very thing I was afraid of the most: the worst outcome. It happened fast, cancer took away my cousin's life. As if it wasn't enough, it tried to control my mom's body too. My mom's condition got worse. In a few years, she had lost some of her body organs, hair & most of her teeth in the process of regaining her health.

Now, that is why cancer is always portrayed as something dramatic in fictions.

I am lucky that mom is the toughest of us all, even when she had it the hardest among us. Even though she must've thought of the worst prospect, she always managed to find a way to be optimistic and treat her body like it's so dear to her. In return, life also embraces her. I see for myself what the professors always told me back then in college: about how the mind affects the body. I could see the embodiment of it on my mom.

Cancer is such a big, scary word for sure. The first time I went to a cancer center as a caregiver, mom warned me to brace myself. It could be scary to come across patients with different conditions that you could expect from one of the world's deadliest illness. In the contrary when I entered the hospital, I didn't find it scary at all. Strangely, there's this feeling of relief at the sight of many people experiencing the same thing as mom. So we're not alone in this. To see these patients fight hard for their life fascinated me. I could feel the desire to live spread all over the room it was kinda evoking. And to see the caregivers tend to the patients so dearly, to see how people care for each other, to witness the human compassion of it all, it warmed my heart. 

Her visits to the cancer hospital had result in her joining a cancer survivor community, where the members support each other, educate others about cancers. That's what's so great about humans: it's that deep down we care for each other and strive to connect and support each other.

If there's anything we could gain from this, is that we've learned to feel grateful for even the smallest thing. There's always a blessing, in ways that we know of and ways that we aren't aware of.