it gives back

It takes away your ease, sucks-out your energy, pulls-down your spirit, and hurts your pockets, but despite the many agonizing and unpleasant stories you might have heard or read from cancer survivors, cancer also gives back. The experience of cancer is a tormenting adversity to those who have encountered it. Hence, most testimonies, stories, and written words of the survivors highlight the rudeness of the treatments. Of how chemotherapy ruined their self esteem when the hair had fallen-out, the constant nausea, headaches, and other discomforts which aggravate the fear of developing another disease as a side effect of the treatment. A man I knew whose wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer said, the disease robbed them of their time. I cannot impugn.

I’ve been through all of the above. By through I meant, the worst part is over. God forbid, a recurrence is not welcome. I remember the distress; in fact I have almost forgotten how to live with ease, at least temporarily. But behind this undesirable experience, an illuminative realization kicked-in. Cancer gives back. It is an admonition to consider death. It may sound morbid but hey, who would not die? Everyone in his own time will. Everyday of our lives, we live with uncertainties. Someone young and healthy could die all of a sudden, caught off guard and unprepared. Cancer survivors had advance notices. Conscious, thus, are able to shift or change their priorities in life, endowed with time to acknowledge what is really important, to appreciate the blessings around them, and to ameliorate the wrongdoings and shortcomings they have done somewhere in their past. Survivors are able to do all these things before their time to finally leave comes. Cancer is a reminder, it does not only take, it gives back.