A friend of mine asked me to write my story, my journey through cancer, struggle and survival. Initially I thought, I am no hero, me being alive is due to my luck and my fate.  I really had nothing to do with getting the cancer or getting rid of cancer. Many others have had a much harder battle than mine, with much harsher outcomes. In my case cancer was not the biggest battle, trying to find the cancer was the bigger battle.

Anyway after much thought and consultation with my husband, decided why not.  My case is still being studied and researched at the Adelaide hospital, what I had was a very rare type of cancer.  If the medics can learn from my case, so can the rest of society, I guess.

One of the things I learnt living in Australia, among the white men, is that they deal with these things in a much more open manner. Part of it has to do with educating the rest of the mass.  I remember as a young kid, I was not allowed to say I had asthma in public, my uncle didn’t have diabetes, he was just being careful.  Or you had the opposite, where you get a barrage of advice, of which ninety percent of it is incorrect.  The sentence starts with “they say apparently if you do this it will just clear in two days”. If you eat ladies finger three times a day, looking at the sun, winking with one eye, while standing on one leg and your cancer will disappear.  I am not denying the benefits of ladies finger or any other vegetable for that matter, but you simply cannot cure serious illnesses such as cancer with a vegetable. If it were possible, someone in the USA would have patented it by now and would be making a fortune.  We, the Sri Lankans, thrive on misinformation.  I guess it was the same in the West in the Elizabethan era, but the people have changed, they now demand knowledge, the doctors don’t tell you anymore, now they discuss with you, they explain it to you. So I say to anyone, who is struck with a serious illness, arm yourself with knowledge, ask questions, read and read about your condition, and with the information you have, ask more questions.

The Aussies are a tough lot.  If you look at history, their journey to Australia was an arduous one, the weak and the meek died at sea, the ones who made it here, wondered why. They were envious of those who perished at sea. The terrain they landed was terrible.  If life was so hard in the lush English soil that they had to steal that bread and hence their journey to this land, now how were they going to survive in this barren land?  Now this barren land is a major exporter of farming products. This lot didn’t make it this far to perish of starvation.  They were going to make it against all odds.  This is the reason, when this lot go out to play sports in the international arena; they get branded as being too rough. TOO ROUGH!! You should see the local games to see how rough they can be. They will continue to play with broken jaws and fingers.  Yes, you have to soldier on with pain and agony to see the end result.  When you get cancer, there is no prize for second best.  Runner up isn’t going to cut it

to be cont…..