Defending Against Cancer
Staying young and healthy, after cancer
Staying Young & Looking Healthy, After Cancer
Charlene (1) was so excited to have run into me and my girlfriend whom she met for the first time now she kept talking all the few minutes in the packed subway ride. She was my classmate in secondary school form 3 (i.e. grade 10). We see each other once a year in reunion dinners and she was looking much younger now than last time I saw her. She looked so young that even my girl friend later commented that it was very difficult to imagine that her daughter was already 28-years-old.
No she was not doing cosmetic surgery or anything; she’s not even wearing makeups, like a large percentage of other women in Hong Kong. She just looked healthy and wrinkle-less and excited. She came close to my ear and whispered, “I had the other side cut off and just recuperated this April.”
A few old classmates and I had previously been praising her speedy recovery from the ovarian cancer she had a few years ago. Chemo and surgery. People who have seen patients having undergone chemotherapy would know: all body hair fall off and lips and skin dried out, and the gum swollen. Charlene has been proud of her natural dark hair before, and now she is, having dealt with a second onslaught and standing in this packed subway car, full of thick dark hair and life and non-stop speeches. What a strong woman.
Genetic exchange between chromosomes can cause cells to become cancerous, like these cells from metastasized Ewing’s sarcoma (bone tumor) Image: Lance Liotta Laboratory
A Major Fear in Modern Life
Not everyone is as lucky or as tough as Charlene. Some people got diagnosed too late. Some got more lethal forms of cancer. Some people I know lost the battle and departed early. Some had their life totally changed.
Cancer is fearsome. It can happen to anyone, regardless of general health, life style and age group. It can happen virtually to any part of the body. Very often the treatment itself is harmful and hurtful, involving the use of poisonous drugs, major incisions, radiation, etc that are destructive also to the body. Steve Jobs of Apple, according to his biography, regretted that he delayed regular treatment of his pancreatic cancer because of the invasiveness of the procedures. No one is willing to allow such harm to the body, if there is a choice.
The best way to avoid them, naturally, is prevention.
Let’s first share some basic understanding of what cancer is.
