This week was a rough week for me. Well, there are some good and some not so good news. Apart from my anxiety of doing my blood test, it's that time of the month again where I need to see my Oncologist for my routine medical check up. It's normal for us to feel this way. I'm praying hard that my blood test result turns out normal. Insya'ALLAH. Well, we will know the results on Monday. *sigh*
Last Tuesday my uncle called me up to have a chat regarding about cancer. His friend's daughter who's only 25 years old, married with a child recently been diagnosed with lung cancer. Shocking? Well, it's common. It's so common that you hear about it almost every week someone you know or friends being diagnosed with cancer. It is as common like having a flu. Scary isn't? Well, that's the facts of life. We live in a world full of unhealthy environments, unhealthy habits, eating unhealthy food, breathing unhealthy air caused by air pollution ie. HAZE, smogs, dust and many more.
So here's another example of things that can happen to ANYONE and anybody. She's only 25 and according to my uncle, she doesn't smoke but her dad does. Therefore, she's a secondary smoker. She recently had her surgery and currently going through chemo. Fortunately, she caught it at early stage. She's young, bubbly, energetic and she's positive about her life. Which is what you need to do in order to go on with your life. So there we have a fighter.
Well, my story does not end there. Last Wednesday was my Yoga day. I have my yoga classes every Wednesday in K.L. I must admit that I didn't expect to be that flexible. It seems that I'm quite flexible according to my yoga instructor. My yoga classes really kept me going. Which is good and I enjoy every moment of it. However, one of my yoga mates broke the news about her mom whom recently being diagnosed with lung cancer too. She's not a smoker, she eats well like organic food but somehow caught the illness too. Wow, so yeah...within 2 days I hear two person diagnosed with lung cancer. That's how common it is when you hear about cancer. It's either breast cancer or lung cancer.
Just when you think that this would be it for this week, my cousin who's only 12 or was it 13 has just being diagnosed with leukemia stage 4. I'm not too sure about the stages in leukemia but well it's as bad as having a cancer. As some of us are aware that leukemia is a kind of cancer too. I hope and pray that he makes it through. Insya'ALLAH. I was told that he was on the breathing machine this morning. It breaks my heart to hear such situation.
What a week for me. I'm tired and exhausted. Both my kids are down with food poisoning and I've been in and out of the hospital this week. I'm keeping my cool and currently monitoring my children's progress. Both hubby and I haven't had enough sleep for the past week. With all this things happening within a week, I think I have some minor difficulty in absorbing it. I'm taking it one day at a time.
Sometimes I think about when and how I was exposed to smokers. I was once a smoker my self. Even though I was just a casual smoker for about 2-3 years but you'll never know how much exposure that the lung can take. I stopped smoking completely 9 years ago. My reasons of smoking was probably stress and tension during my college days. Sometimes it is all about fitting in the group. Your surroundings tend to influence you to do stupid things like smoking or drinking for example. More of like peer pressure. I used to go clubbing during those college days and I don't drink therefore I just smoke for the fun it. Chain smokers will always claim that they know another chain smokers who lives up to 70 or 80 so to them is nothing too serious to worry about. Well, like I said before..things happened for a reason. I know 3 of my parent's friends died of lung cancer and one of them is my uncle. My dad quit smoking because of what he saw with my late uncle. That was 15 years ago. So there, I am also a victim of second hand smoker. Unfortunately my brother still smokes and there's nothing anyone of us can do when you know someone is a chain smoker. They will never realized it until they get their light bulb moment. As it is, he is already hurting his loved ones. I just hope and pray that it's not too late.
That's why now days I am quite particular with my surroundings. When I go to public places and eating out, I'll avoid the smoking area totally. I would stare at some idiots who smokes at the non-smoking area. Sometimes I would tell them off or complain to the restaurant manager. If they don't do anything about it, I'll walk off. The last time I was exposed to such smoky area was during the last Piccadilly re-union which thank god I left early. That was it. It was bad enough that I really regretted staying in for almost 2 hours. All I wanted to do was meeting up with some old friends.
I'm very fortunate that my husband doesn't smoke. He hates smog. He doesn't like the smell of smoke or people smoking. So both of us are pretty much very particular about our surroundings. Of course we have friends who smokes. But they respect us enough to smoke away from us. Some of course knew what had happened to me and they avoid smoking in front of us. Smoking DOES caused lung cancer and throat cancer. It's proven. I have seen the results. In fact now it's also proven that second hand smokers are diagnosed with cancers. Scary as this sounds but that's the actual fact. So please do think it over. Think about what I said. Think about what could happen to your love ones.
Anyway I'm glad that the haze is gone. I know that it will come back again next year. I just hope the government would do something about it. I had enough with the haze this year. It really got me depressed for a while. I'm beginning to sound like a preacher. I better stop now.
So there; to those of you who are reading this and happened to be a smoker, start thinking about your health or your love ones. They can be effected too. We know that things like this happens for a reason but if we can control and prevent it from happening. Or at least do regular check ups, that will save lives.
Maybe next week I'll blog about things that can sometimes pissed off cancer survivors. Oh, and I get that all the time.
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