I should Have, But...

Today, I will be attending a talk on Emotional Code organised by Yeong and Khadijah. The talk will be held at the SS19/1 Residents' Association premises and I will be away for most part of the morning. I hope to learn something from this interesting subject.

Yesterday afternoon, I was having lunch at this organic restaurant and I spoke to the boss and he told me he is the process of planting Sabah Snake Grass on his farm on a large scale. Hopefully, he will get some good harvest in 6 months time and he will giving them away free to cancer patients. Will let you know if it materialises.

Nurse Reveals The Top 5 Regrets People Make on Their Deathbed
For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Except for item (4), my list is the same as above. While I cannot change item (2) above, my cancer has helped me live and understand better. I have been working on items (1), (3) and (5) since. It's still work in progress.

I would recommend a very fun movie called Pleasantville. It's a 1998 American fantasy comedy-drama film staring Tobey Maguire (of Spiderman fame). Perhaps it will help you understand better items (1) and (3) on the above list. I will not say more to "spoil" your watch except that it's really a movie about self discovery.

Health Charity Says Four in 10 People Will Get Cancer
I picked up this piece of news form BBC on Sunday.

Macmillan Cancer Support says a decade ago about a third of people, or 33%, developed cancer at some point in their lives. The charity says that figure has risen to more than 40%.

The estimates are drawn from projections published two years ago in the British Journal of Cancer, which concluded that at the end of 2008 there were two million cancer survivors in the UK and that the figure was rising every year.

About 157,000 people died from the disease, and 89,000 who had been diagnosed with cancer died from other causes, making a total of 246,000 who died "with" cancer. The charity says this accounted for 42% of total deaths in the UK.