THE BIG C

My mom and dad went to the hospital this morning to visit my mom's aunt there. For the past few weeks Aunt B seemed to be growing something in her tummy because it was big and it looked like she was pregnant. An inital diagnosis of her condition said that she had water in her tummy. But the final diagnosis is worse. She has cancer of the ovary which affected part of her colon. My mom said it was Stage 2. Today she was recovering from the operation where she had the cancer-ridden ovary removed. Her children thought it best not to tell her that she has cancer so Aunt B has no idea at all. When she found out that she was going to undergo some chemotherapy, she became worried and asked why. They just told her that it was for "preventive" measures. She accepted this reasoning and hopefully will no longer worry about her condition in the next few weeks.

Thinking about this, I realized that if I were in a similar situation, I would appreciate being told the truth. I would rather know what I'm up against so that I could battle it. I would not want to be complacent about such a thing but do my best to beat it so that I could live longer and be with my loved ones longer.

This kind of situation serves as a reality check for us mortals. If I were younger and I would visit my Aunt B at the hospital, I would wish her to get better soon and think about it no more. But now that I'm older, it goes beyond that simple thinking. It's no longer just wishing someone ill would get better and recover. We start to think about our health, our aches and pains, our family's medical history. We consider the possibility of making a will, of getting a health insurance, of having yearly physical check-ups. It's no longer a simple thing, no longer something negligible that we could easily brush aside. Death is something one has to come to terms with sooner or later. I would just want to prevent that for as long as I possibly can.