Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Opening Strategy

Some of you may be wondering the relationship between cancer therapy and the patient, why cancer patients find it so difficult to select the appropriate therapy. Like me, I have been reading so many therapies, how do I know which therapy is good for me? Is there a way I can put you in my shoes so that you can see what I am going through in therapy selection. I think I can use the analogy of the relationship between a boyfriend and a girlfriend. The cancer patient is the girl. The boyfriend is one of the therapies. How's the girl going to pick the so called "right" boyfriend. The boyfriend says all the sweet words to the girl just like the therapy promises the "cure" to the cancer patient. But after talking to many boyfriends (aka cancer therapies), all boyfriends are talking more or less the same sweet words. The girl is now confused. Which boyfriend is telling the truth? Which boyfriend should the girl select? The danger to all of these are that the girl must evaluate the boyfriend as a package. Not just the sweet words he talks but what he is like, etc. Similarly, you don't select for example just sour soup as the therapy just because it has some anti-cancer properties because you need more than that to survive cancer. Then you hear lemon grass is good and take that as well and before long, you take so many individuals therapies. It's like a girl dating so many boyfriends at the same time. What happens? In real life, the girl would of course go through a dating period before final selection. For therapies, there may not be a dating or trial period. This is because selecting the wrong therapy, the cancer patient may loses his or her life during the trial period. Therefore the selection of the therapy is much more stressful. Doctors and reading materials are all guides only. What one therapy that work on one patient may not work on another. The final selection would depend on the gut feel of the patient. Sometimes the girl's family may oppose the choice of boyfriend just as the family may not support your choice of therapy. Some patients actually leave it to their loves ones or doctors to decide. All I can tell you is that it is not easy. Can feel depressed and loses many nights of sleep over it. Don't forget there are monetary considerations as well. Come to think of it, should a cancer patient let others decide on which therapy he or she should take?

Since I have adopted a much more proactive approach to my daily activities, I am feeling more charged up and lively. No more sitting or lying around on the excuse of pain of the legs. Dumped my pathetic look and decided to feel good.  Despite the the pain on my right leg, I have decided not to let that stop me from going out to meet friends and run my errands. I am also thinking what I can do to earn back some income doing some work on a part time basis. I am also thinking of investing some  money to go for some certifications and put myself back on circulation in the job market in the event the opportunity presents itself. This is to move myself away from the sickly environment to a more positive environment. It does not matter if I live a month, three months, a year or whatever. A friend emailed me an appropriate reminder:

LIFE IS NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU COULDN'T DO SO FAR,  
ITS ABOUT WHAT YOU STILL CAN..!!

I take comfort in that as least I tried. It is better to have tried than never tried before (borrowed from its better to have love than never loved before).

6 comments:

  1. best post Ive seen so far from you...:) keep it up.. keep going.. live a full life..

    regards, Lanie

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  2. Really glad to see that you are charged up and leading a normal life again with great plans ahead, but please don't over-exert yourself.
    Now that you are in good hands please relax and take time to have fun with family and friends. With the positive attitude I'm sure whatever the treatment you choose, it will work on you.

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  3. Yeay! 2 thumbs up! SY

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  4. Chang,

    That's indeed the better strategy, I sensed the positive attitude very strongly when we met that day,

    Keep it up,

    rgds, kokpiew

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  5. Chang

    This post just make me laugh! Thanks....

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