Member-only story
Becoming an Animal after Cancer
Survival becomes you when you least expect it
I was hit hard by an unfair diagnosis while I was at the peak of my career and personal life. It took me a serious amount of time to come to terms with what had happened to me.
Cancer does not manifest out of the blue. It is a process, crawling inside your system over time, sneaking for the right moment.
I had not a faint idea. No symptoms, no disturbances, no bodily signals. Nothing.
One night, I went to sleep and almost did not wake up. The last thing I remember was the ambulance carrying me over to the emergency. I was administered oxygen, surrounded by a web of cables and sensors measuring my vitals. I was lost.
— What will happen to my kid? I screamed at the top of my lungs. The whole world shook in response. What a quake! A bunch of paramedics did their best to give me hope.
Do you know what is the first and foremost tether to life, when disaster strikes? Hope. Have someone or something give you hope. It can be the first responders.
Those young guys, in the dark of night, did everything in their power to convince me:
a) that I was not dead already (seeing is believing)
and b) I was not going to die: At least not that day, not right there.
