Blessings

Don’t let fear overtake the path you intend to discover. Believe. Dream. Surrender. Follow the trail. You may discover something precious at the end of the road – the happy feeling of knowing that you are not alone in the battle for He is always by your side.

Look back, count the positive things happening in your life. Smile  and say,  “I am blessed”.

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Send Prayers Instead

Not long ago, I received this message from some Facebook friends and it says:

Put a heart (♥) on your wall without comment, only a heart. Then send this message to all your friends – only the women. Next, place a heart on the wall of the person who sent this message to you. And if someone asks you why you have so many hearts on your wall, do not reply. This is only for women to remember that this is the week to remember and care about breast cancer. And that we should always think about it.
To make a heart, type < with no space and then a 3 or just highlight the heart, copy and then paste to your wall post.

I wonder who started this but you know how it is on the net, every message you post seems to spread like wildfire without the senders even thinking if it would be appreciated by the recipient.  It’s their way of  making the guys curious about what the heart represents just like the one I received a year ago to just post any color on your wall when the original message was, what’s the color of the bra you’re wearing or something to that effect. Anyway, it’s good that they even think  of and care about breast cancer but it is quite insensitive when they send  the same message to a cancer patient or a cancer survivor  who had struggled with a different kind of cancer. Why do they have to isolate it to breast cancer alone? Why do they need to put the nail on the head and emphasize that it is only breast cancer that matters? You might think,  am I just so sensitive because I was also a cancer victim? Why can’t they just generalize their message and make it a sort of prayer brigade for all people afflicted with the disease, breast cancer or not? There are as many types of cancer that you could not even count on your fingers and if I may say, every cancer type is lethal when you discover it too late and when it is on its progressive stage.

A few weeks after I’ve finished my chemotherapy  almost two years ago (December 08, 2009 was my last session by the way), I searched the net for foundations which support cancer survivors and all I found were the pink ribbon organizations that again, are concentrated on breast cancer awareness and cure. I felt frustrated that they zeroed in on just one type when there are also millions of people out there suffering from other types of cancer.  I understand that breast cancer is one of the most common type of cancers in women, but when you are afflicted with the disease, breast cancer or not, you suffer the same degree of pain and anguish. You suffer the same insecurities whether you will get well or not. And it is even funny that when you meet people from all walks of life and let them know that you are a survivor, they always assume that it is breast cancer. Nope, I said, I had stage 3 colon cancer  and they usually ask if  the treatment is the same – I dont’ know about the other types but I underwent six cycles of chemotherapy and took oral chemotherapy tablets for more than five months. It’s the effect of the chemo drugs on your body that you have to be aware of because one of my friends who is also a cancer survivor  told me that long after you are done with the drastic treatment, the toxins injected in your body are still there.  Trite as it may sound, it’s not a walk in the park and you need lots of resources to continue with the treatment.

In the long run, if you ask me what I value most in my life now, it’s my health. What they say is true, health is wealth. And yes, prayers, lots and lots of prayers and the will and strength to move on – the will to live a normal life again as much as possible.  And the fervent wish that they will finally find a cure instead of subjecting a patient to slash, poison and burn. A friend whom I met on the net and has written several books on alternative cure  said that Slash means the surgery itself, Poison refers of course to chemotherapy and Burn is his term for Radiation Therapy.  And let me end this blog by quoting some favorite lines from one of my favorite writers of all time, Henri Nouwen, a Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer:

Why is it important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It’s important because it’s the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you “my beloved daughter,” “my beloved son,” my beloved child.” To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being.

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