my 8′ sunflowers
The last 2 days have been a time of serious reflection for me. It was just 2 years ago in Hong Kong, while giving a 3 hour sales presentation to a big Taiwanese insurance company, I suddenly couldn’t read the slides in front of me. I was seeing colored dots in my field of vision and suddenly felt dizzy and had trouble speaking. I left the meeting, and after sitting with my head on my desk for a while I had the worst headache of my life. Somehow I managed to take the MTR home, where I curled up in bed in the dark and suffered until early the next morning.
I thought I’d had a migraine, but 2 months later I learned the truth, the headache was caused by swelling which severely pinched the ventricle on the left side of my brain. The swelling was caused by three brain tumors.
I’ll never forget that headache or the 2 more that followed. I’ll also never forget getting the results of my first MRI and finding out that there was something very wrong in my brain. I ‘ll never forget learning that I had lesions and I’ll never forget learning they were cancerous.
I’ll also never forget how many people in my life were so eager to support me.
I’ll never forget my parents and my brother jumping on the first plane out to see me, or Andy and Rob following right after to see me before my surgery. I’ll never forget all the emails, phone calls, cards and positive messages of every kind. I’ll never forget that in that night alone in the hospital before surgery I’d never felt less alone in my life.
2 years later I am still alive, feeling well and full of hope. Every day before I go to bed I give thanks. I give thanks for having been able to live that day, and for being able to spend it with Nicole and with my parents. I give thanks for my family and friends who have been so supportive, and for the doctors who have cared for me with honesty and compassion. I give thanks for the sunshine and rain, the wind and the ability to see and smell and feel and experience all the strange and wonderful beauty of the world. I give thanks for being given the opportunity to understand what is truly important in my life, and to see all of the incredible, chaotic, senseless beauty that is life. Someone told me that my life started over that day 2 years ago, and that I’m celebrating my birthday now. Maybe that’s true, but the eyes I’ve been given these last 2 years have shined a bright light on the 36 years before that, on all the amazing people who have been a part of my life and all the amazing places I have seen. I feel luckier today than ever before, and know that I will not need to look back to see the same beauty in the next 36 years of my life.
To all the people who have supported me these last 2 years, I have no words to express how much it has meant and will be in your debt till the end of my days.
And to anyone out there who is facing cancer or any other grave disease I send a message of hope. I send it because Hope is strength. Family is strength. Friends are strength. God is strength. You are strength and recovery is possible!
-TC
Here here! Keep the faith, TC! Love, Sanford & A-Bomb
What I meant to say was: “Hear Hear” !!
Ted,
Reading your blog has been really inspiring. Your positivity and will to ive and love of life are truly amazing. Keep it up!
Rob
Daifung, thank you for blogging this leg of your life’s journey. I read the sections about getting support with great interest. I am now 7 years and 3 months free of cancer. I was newly married at the time, and we had been trying to conceive for a year when I was diagnosed. That month I also found out I was pregnant.
One would think that family and husband and friends would rally round at that sort of thing, but in fact they did not. Best friend went 3 months without calling or checking in otherwise. Mother, sister sent a few letters but never considered coming out (and years later, neither will let me show them my massive surgery scars.) Husband got meaner instead of stronger, and never came to a single radiation treatment with me in 3 months.
Sometimes I wonder why no one was willing to go on that journey with me. And sometimes I simply forget that people can and SHOULD walk with us during those times. Thank you for reminding me that it was totally reasonable for me to expect support, that I deserved that even though I didn’t get it.
Yes, we absolutely should expect our friends and family to support us in our darkest times, but one lesson I have learned through all this is to cut everyone a lot of slack. Many of my friends did not contact me for a long time after hearing about my illness. When I reached out to them the response was consistently the same, they just didn’t know what to say. When cancer strikes you the people around you have to face the concepts of death and loss just as you do. This I was acutely aware of in my own situation. Where-as I quickly accepted the thought of dieing, for friends and family it was more difficult. Some reacted with anger, some with sorrow, some with resignation and some with denial. I am endlessly grateful to those who responded with kindness and support, but I do not begrudge those who responded in other ways because each of us faces our emotions and fears in our own ways. Congratulations on being cancer free for so long!