The Cancer Warriors

So often we read about celebrities, politicians, sports personalities, who have fought cancer and succeeded, being termed as warriors. But the question that begs to be answered is can we confer the title of Cancer Warriors on them? Considering that most choose to go abroad for their treatment, makes you wonder how little a faith they had in the Indian medical system, and let’s face it they have money to burn. 

It’s not that their struggle is smaller or greater. At the end of the day, Cancer is a great leveller, it doesn’t discriminate. It affects people irrespective of their social status, religion, class or nationality. In short, it treats everyone alike, no matter who, what and where. It’s just some have greater access to resources than the other.

Being diagnosed with Cancer is like a death sentence in itself. So often the patient dies not really from the cancer but from the burden of the treatment and then from the treatment itself. Very often fear of life with cancer is what drives one closer to the grave. Being told that you have cancer effectively brings your life to a standstill, brings your world crashing down around you. And this isn’t just for the patient but also for their relatives and friends. The first question is of survival, the next is of the stage and finally comes the cost. And it’s here where many a hope comes crashing down.

Cancer treatment doesn’t come cheap and it easily accessible. The fear of the financial burden that the treatment will incur is what causes more pain than the pain of the treatment itself. This very often where hope gets crushed. And the treatment is not easy and takes a toll mentally and physically on all involved, the patient included.

But no matter what there’s always a will to live, a will to survive, a will to make it through within their means and ability. This will to live, this Hope is what sustains families, is what pulls them through, is what keeps them going. You can glimpse this will, this hope in their eyes as they wait there in line for hours and hours for their treatment. They bear the pain of the chemo coursing through their veins with the hope that somehow it’s controlling the cancerous cells, if not killing it. You can see them wince in pain, but you still see that hope burning in them. Their family standing by them, consoling them, staring blankly at that bottle as drop by drop the chemo flows, and with each drop there’s a hope of a miracle, of survival. Every drop carrying a silent prayer with it. And though the medicine may cause the patient to whither, there’s a hope always burning bright.

You see them with their face masks and their head in a scarf, to hide their baldness from the treatment, with their family, relatives, friends by their side, sitting on benches, lying on pavements. You can see the pain and sorrow in their eyes, but can also see the hope in their heart. Their plight moves you, brings you tears, makes you fight that lump in your throat, causing you turn your face cause you can’t take it. But then you will yourself to face life, to face it, to do what you can do. You’ve faced it, you know the pain, the suffering, the sorrow, toll that it takes. 

You empathise with them. You feel for them. You pray they never loose hope, through all the pain and suffering, cause you know when the hope is gone, so is the will to live. And that’s something you don’t want or hope for anyone, and so you pray that they have hope and strength that will never end. 

Through it all they keep fighting, fighting for their life, fighting for survival, fighting through the pain, fighting for the ones they love, never giving up hope, never giving up the fight, fighting the good fight, like a true warrior, a true cancer warrior. For me they are true champions, true Cancer Warriors.