A Soldier's Speech

You don't have to be in field for the war. Everyday's life is a battle and I just wrote about being positive...

This is about my friend who is fighting for his life. He has cancer and taking treatment and he has given a speech in a forum - where patients & their families were present. I have given his speech below with little modification to protect his privacy. After reading it, tell me - if he can be so positive when he goes through this, why can't we be positive to face life....

Cancer… a scary thing I have seen only in movies. I didn’t realize the power of cancer, what it does to a human mentally & physically… till it touched my best friend.

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Exactly two years ago, he felt that there were some changes in his routine… he didn’t feel hungry at all, couldn’t sleep properly, frequent fever and blood vomiting once in a while. He was ignoring it initially and didn’t want to take a chance when he didn’t eat for almost two days and still not feeling hungry. He visited his family doctor and took couple of routine tests. After reviewing the reports, the doctor called an oncologist for consultation. It has been found that my friend got lymphoma. To put it in simple terms, this type of cancer makes the growth of cells in the lymph system uncontrollable. And for those who don’t know about lymphatic system, this is the one that helps filter out bacteria and is important in fighting disease. In a nutshell it sucks the energy and the immunity level.

The family doctor had to break the news to him directly as he is the head of the family – and knowing his family’s past history, the doctor preferred to tell him first. Like anyone else, his question was why him? Though he was shattered with the news, he recovered immediately and was asking doctor about the next steps. The good news here is that this was detected in early stage. My friend is a regular blood donor and with those reports, it was evident that the cancer started spreading in short span of time.

The fight then started… more than physically, it was mentally. He chose not to share it with his family as they have gone through enough and he didn’t want to add up more to that. He decided to manage by himself. He was too shy to let others know… he was afraid that others would look him with sympathy. He hated it… he could do things any one else can do it. But with the symptoms showing up, he shared it with his roommate and mentioned him not to share it with anyone.

He started going for the treatments and routine medical check-ups. The real nightmare started when he had to go through chemotherapy. For the folks here who have taken the chemo treatment or have seen their closed ones taken the chemo treatment, I don’t have to explain.

Though Chemo treats most of the cancer, it sucks the energy; it puts you into a testimony. It tests the patience level, the humor sense of a person. You could feel the dramatic changes in a person. All you need to understand is that is the chemical reaction that makes that person react like that. Chemo can be in any form – injection, tablets. The doctor will prescribe the best for the patient.

My friend started his chemo treatment and he continued working. There were lots of side effects such as nausea, fatigue. It is like still wanting to sleep though you have slept for enough hours. Feeling tired all the time – the tasks he used to do with no extra efforts now seems to be done with big effort. Lot of challenges at work front – he got promotion and he had to compete with others. The good news is that his cancer was at initial stage, so he could do lot of things which an advanced level cancer person can’t do.

Let me explain little bit about the mental trauma what he has shared when he went through chemo. Though there are so many folks to take care, he expects that one special call and gets disappointed in big time when he doesn’t get. He feels low and hurt… he knows that the folks who don’t call him up or check on him do care for him – but like I said it is mental game. He wasn’t affected too much of the diet restriction as he wasn’t a big time food lover. But during chemo, the moment he sees food even if it is one of his favorites, still he feels like puking. With pain in heart and tiredness in body, it pushes one towards loneliness and empty feeling.

And let me tell you how he overcome – he strongly believes in that he has been blessed to love and to be loved and cancer taught him to see life in different angle. The normal issues like salary, promotion all those became petty issues for him. The life changed forever when he met Praveen. Most of you know Praveen who was here for more than a year. He had advanced stage of lymphoma and in short time he became pretty close to my friend. They used to do so many pranks together. This place was never a hospital when they were together. Praveen used to be pretty sick and he was in hospital most of the times… my friend and Praveen used to talk almost every day and when Praveen knew that he is towards end of his life – his last words were about my friend. He has told doctor that he will be there with my friend all the time to fight it back. That moment my friend decided not to give cancer even a single moment to pull him down.

He keeps telling the very first incident where he fooled the doctor. He went to doctor along with his cousin and showed his cousin as the patient and explained; He had to reveal the truth when the doctor was about to do test his cousin. Doctor smiled and told that he won’t need a session with psychiatrist (before taking up the chemo). There were so many don’ts – but he never bothered. His answers were, I enjoyed my life before by doing those things and I will enjoy my life once I recover – more than that I don’t regret now – as I have got many more things to compensate them. He is one more believer of – when God closes one door, opens up many doors for you!

Yes… cancer taught him to fight back; it taught him to love life more than ever. I could easily see that cancer changed his life for good… brought lots of life, positive attitude and fighting spirit. While he didn’t want to earn anyone’s sympathy, doctor suggested him to share it with close friends and wherever needed – to tell the world that cancer is manageable and curable and not as scary as it is being shown in movies. He started sharing it with his close buddies. Nothing changed in his life in fact when he went through this, he didn’t loose anything in his professional career.

I am here on behalf of my friend to tell the patients that medicine can cure only little, but the mental strength and positive attitude will surely beat up cancer. Look at yourself; you have come across a long way in life overcoming lot of challenges. This is yet another challenge, an opportunity to understand what best life has to provide. If you have question in your mind that why you… here is the answer: Because you are strong, because only you have the strength to face it. God doesn’t choose cowards to give cancer… Just fight it like a soldier and you will be proud of it. Very less people get chances to understand the value of life and you are one of them. Follow your medications, do routine check-ups and more than that be positive all the time… don’t ever give chance to cancer to take over you! Good luck…

And to the families, friends & relatives… please don’t treat them as patients. They need help & support but not sympathy. They can do more than anyone else can. Try to understand them and the disease. When they are upset or down, it is not they… it is the disease what makes them. Be a positive support to them, encourage and be with them all the time. They need your care like any normal person does.

And I love to answer any of your questions…

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Happiness - Being Positive!

My first post... the way I see the blog - it is flow of thoughts with one's own identity. So I am going to write without thinking too much... no draft, direct gyaan. Enough warning... please continue at your own risk!

All of us want to be happy, cheerful all the time - is it possible? It is possible when things work in favor of us but the big question is can we be happy when things aren't working very well? I thought a lot about it like anyone else and as a true six sigma black belt, I wanted to find out the factors that influences happiness and the first one came to my mind - "Being Positive - ALL THE TIME".

My definition of being positive - taking the situation as it comes without thinkining too much about what went wrong in the past, taking the learnings anything if applicable and carrying forward - also in this whole process, without hurting anyone including ourself. Again there are certain things which are in our control and some are not in our control such as things triggered by nature. Being positive is how to face a situation irrespective of who caused it and how.

The first step is for being positive is to convince ourself that we are going to be positive. This is very important as if we do not believe in some thing, we just can't or rather I would say we shouldn't do it.

Once we make up and determined that we are going to be positive - then let us analyze the situation. Remember, being positive is not running from that situation - it is facing but without that situation affecting us. When we analyze the situation, below are two questions we should ask ourselves:
- Can we do something about it to reduce the impact?
- What we need to do to avoid this in the future?
Basically we have understood why it happened and trying to do something about it in the future. That's all - it sounds simple, isn't it? But still why there is negative energy around - let us talk about it little bit.

All of us know the basic rule what I have written above - but why at times we choose the other way? Venting out is easy and it feels good - it is short term happiness whose life is shorter. We don't want to take responsible to fix up certain things and those times, taking either neutral or negative way seems to be better - but remember... the symptoms are gone but the wound is there deep inside.

Whatever we spoke about so far is being positive on situations which aren't triggered naturally. There are situations such as loved one's death or disease. Can we still be positive? yes... same question - can we do something about what happened? absolutely not... can we do something about it in the future - yes, think about the good memories left by that person or concentrating on the medication. Remember, being positive is definitely going to help in speedy recovery.

Positiveness is going to take a long way - because it needs guts and lot of patience. Also you will be seen as crazy or someone insensible to that situation when you tackle it positively. But hey who cares? you decided to be positive and no one can stop it expect you.

Being positive is contagious... and that is the very first step to be happy!!