The will not to die - a decade after surviving cancer
Almost exactly ten years ago, I had what appeared to be a harmless cough that was, soon after an x-ray and CT scan, diagnosed as Stage 3 lung cancer.
The odds of survival were not in my favour, and I notified that I had a 25% chance of survival. I knew I was in that 25% without any doubt.
I had a 15-year-old child in school, a loving wife, and took care of my mother and mother-in-law.
Not ideal for dying yet. I had also just turned fifty and started a practice called Pierian (now Accensis) as the sole partner.
My medical team did a lobectomy, removing the lower lobe of my left lung.
I was in an excruciating amount of pain. However, that could not compare to what was to come.
Chemotherapy, though not painful, is best described as the living dead. Even if it is considered one of the most effective cancer treatments currently known to man, there is no easy way to experience it. It will be challenging to understand if you have not been through it.
Having cancer is like losing someone close to you or part of you. I encountered and experienced the five stages of grief as set out by Swiss-American Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler- Ross:
Denial,
Anger,
Bargaining,
Depression,
And,
Acceptance,
Read more about it here
There was not one point at which I thought I would lose the fight. I was determined to survive. I had my loving family around me, including my sister, who hastily flew down from the USA, an incredible medical team and friends who cared.
One of the best therapies was seeing my dogs, both of whom are now gone. My sister, a psychiatrist, knew a number of the medical team and was comfortable with them. Positive people on the same side surrounded me.
Cancer is certainly not a death sentence; getting your mind around it is the first step to winning. Everything after that is routine. Chemo, other medication, and pain are much easier to deal with when you know you will make it.
As a professional, I did not have much cover in practice, as I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was thirty-two, and PPS limited my pay-out based on my 1993 salary to pay me in 2012. All other life insurances did not offer me the dreaded disease because of my diabetes. According to the insurers, I should have been dead when I was forty. I am still around at sixty. Be careful when dealing with PPS and other insurers as they are very fast in taking away your umbrella on a rainy day.
Each patient and each type of cancer is different. My advice from my experience is that you need to get your mind fighting hard and say I will not die.