*Mango Lover*

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Touching blog of a Cancer patient

Relatively free in office these days cos I have handed off some of my work load to others as I'm moving off to another team. Decided to visit this blog which was mentioned in an article in the papers the other day - http://shandysim.blogspot.com/ It is about the journey of a lady, Shandy, after she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Since I had so much time, I managed to read each and every entry on her blog since June 08. To me, she was not an ordinary lady. Despite going through the painful treatments and chemotherapy, she remained upbeat throughout. She was humorous in her blog as she joked after shaving her hair off:

"The good thing about this is that shampooing takes a couple of seconds and it dries almost instantly. Styling takes no effort. :)"

And on losing weight after chemotherapy:
"Am waiting for Marie France Slimming Centre to endorse me. Hehehe..."

She was also optimistic all the way. She constantly reminded herself that everything will be better in time to come. She thought about the things she wants to do after recovering. She mentioned that she wants to go London twice this year as she did not manage to go in 2008 (it was an annual affair for her to visit London). I think she was ultra brave to endure all the pain and agony that she went through. Sad thing, she was unable to overcome this illness. The cancer cells still spread eventually and took her life on 26 Dec 08.

I truly applaud her for such bravery and perseverence. Her fighting spirit was awesome and inspiring. It's something that everyone should learn from. If it was me, I probably would have given up and committed suicide right from the onset. Firstly, it deeply saddens me if I was told that I was unable to give birth cos I love kids alot. This was one of Shandy's wish too. Secondly, my threshold for pain tolerence is extremely low. Probably no amount of anaesthesia or sedation is going to numb all my pain. My tears fell uncontrollably even though the dentist had injected several jabs of anaesthesia when I had one of my tooth extracted.

Shandy's story touches me so much that my heart goes out to her and her family. I can't help but kept thinking about this all day, even when I was in meetings. I have even smsed her brother to offer my condolences to her family. It's story like this which make us stop and ponder in the midst of our busy schedules. We have often taken life for granted and forgotten about how precious life really is. Shandy was a manager at OCBC with a bright future and had barely started on her life journey. She had yet to marry and start a family but cancer had striked her.

From this, I think it is important to take care of your health and seriously cherish your loved ones. Even though alot of such illnesses are fated, one should still try his or her best to be healthy. For me, I am still trying to maintain my weekly run. Went for a run yesterday after work. Looking forward to my first pilates class tomorrow. Wanted to sign up for Yoga too but the time slot is very popular and the class is full already. Oh well, will sign up for the next available slot...

*Love my family, friends and DD*

++ MarryMango at 8:33 PM.