Breast cancer, should we be afraid?

October is the breast cancer month. Every year there will be events to raise fund and create awareness, pink ribbons given out, seminars, TV programs, etc.  If you are ever involved, you will know that it’s seasoning.

I am a breast cancer survival.  I had mine 10 years ago, and it was pretty scary.  I meant to write a series of articles for newspaper from the patient’s point of view, I never finished it.  In fact, I wrote about 3 pieces already and need another two for the set.  Maybe I’ll do that this year and publish it next October.

I think reading from another patient’s experience can help patients cope with their problems.  In fact, when my oncologist (cancer doctor) learned that I can speak, he asked me to talk in several events over the years.  In fact, I once had a job candidate asked me during interview about my cancer, which startled me.  It turned out to do her homework for the interview, she searched my name in the Google, and found pages of my reference to do with cancer.  You see, they made me the president of the Thai Breast Friends Club, a support group for breast cancer.  

 

It’s not that I’m most qualified for dedicated, farthest from the truth, but it’s because they couldn’t find anyone who would accept it.  So I have had the title since they started the club until now.  I really should resign, as I have done hardly anything for them in the past few years.  (So this is my confession.)

Should we be afraid?  Yes and no.  Until I had it, I didn’t realize that it’s widely affected people.  It used to be the number one cancer for women in the US, and for Thailand, it’s either the number one or two next to pelvic cancer.  After people know that I had it, people stop to talk to me all the time, which is great.  I still get calls from patients who either read an article I wrote or got referred to by my friends, doctors, staffs, etc.  If you know of someone who can use some counseling on breast cancer, send her or him this way.  It can be the patients or relatives.  People usually feel better after talking to me.  The fact that I had a bad case (stage 2B with Her2 positive), and still around kicking normally gives them incentive to continue fighting. 

I advise women over 40 to take mammography test yearly for early detection.  Yes, we all should be aware, but we should not be afraid.  As I said, breast cancer is so common that research in this field is probably the most advanced among all cancers.  I usually joke with patients that if you have to have cancer, breast cancer is the best.  You get medicine for it and it happens on an organ that you can live without (vs brain, lung, pancreas, etc.).  Definitely, breast cancer can be cured- particularly with early detection.

As they say, there’s nothing to fear but fear itself.  This also applies for cancer treatment.  Those who can’t be cured can also live with it.  I tell people that my cancer is gone, but it can always come back.  If and when it does, I’ll go through the treatment again. 

One thing about having cancer is that it gives you perspective in life.  It’s hard for me to break my back on business any more (or maybe I’m just getting old?).  I enjoy my friends and loved ones more, and make time for them than I used to. 

You can say having cancer is a wake up call.  It’s better to have one than not- the wake-up call I mean. 

Water, water everywhere

So, if you have been in Thailand the past month or so, even for a day, you’d feel the frenzy we have over this current flood situation.  What is so unique about it?  After all, Thailand and floods do exist side by side for generations.

 

First of all, it’s HUGE.  People on the street can quote you the exact volume of water, because we all have been watching news like reality shows- for months now.  But I think the thing that hit us most, the flood hits Bangkok.

Cars parked on bridges to avoid flood
Photo: Pichet Suksai

We folks in Bangkok prefer watching disaster on TV.  When the South had it, we sent donation and goods to help them.  We talked about it, read it in the papers and we felt for them.  When the Northeast had it, we did the same.  Now, when it’s our turn, we react differently; we lost our cool.  After all this is Bangkok.  We are used to flash floods that stop traffic for a few hours, those we can deal with.  But 1-3 meters of water, are you crazy?  Who would have imagined?  Surely the government will never let this happen right here in downtown Bangkok.

By the way, the government, just two months ago elected into the office by votes outside Bangkok, are now stuck with tasks way above their heads.  The big-talk MP’s are nowhere to be seen.  Our first female PM, clone of you-know-who, is in command, and she probably just learned how to read weather/ flood maps a few weeks ago.

To make the story more complicated, the fact that the government and the BMA are from opposite political parties can’t be any worse.  This is not to include that the Government does not entirely trust the military either.  And we can’t blame them either, because it was the army who last time conducted a coup, toppled you-know-who.  In that case, calling an emergency decree is out of the question.  That will put too much power in the hand of the military.

Roadways submerge
Photo: Pichet Suksai

You can say that this is a political as well as natural disaster.  The parties suffer the most are not the political parties, mind you, but Thai folks like you and me, business owners, workers and just about everyone.  Financial figures for the damage have been quoted, but I suspect that it will take years even a decade to recoup this.

Will we Thais ever learn?  I’m afraid not.  We get what we pay for.  If we are paid for our votes, what do we expect of the quality of our administrators, our vote buyers that is?  We are paying for the price now and will continue to do so in years to come.

Happy democracy, everyone….

More on Part II

To Blog or not to blog?

I was asked to start keeping a blog by my editorial staff for quite a while.  I was given some good answers as to why I should, but already forgot what they were.  I don’t think they are the real reasons though.

You see, we have agreed that to attract traffic to our various websites, our web team insists that we need interesting blogs.  And how can we get even an interesting blog, someone has to write it.  They all point to me although I don’t think that I can create more entertaining contents than them.  It’s just that somebody has to do it, it might as well be you, boss.  Of course, they don’t quite come out and say it, but as the Thais say, I have taken showers before them.  I know it sounds stupid in English, but it means I have been around longer, so I know what they are after.  (I never figure out this expression as to why someone should get smarter by having taken more showers.)

Anyway, here I am with my first blog.  I have no clue on how to do it right, but know that I need to crank it out at least once a week, or else….  They say it’s like keeping a personal journal or a diary, which I never did.  As a child when it was fashionable to keep diary, I never figured out an incentive to do so.  First, it looks like work.  Second, if you keep secret there, then it will no longer be secret when someone else reads it.  If you keep it for you to read yourself, I think it’s rather funny.  I’d rather forget and do something else fun.

Back to our blog, my editor also said that I can comment on what I see, news I follow, people I meet or issues that I follow.  OK, that sounds interesting.  I can do that, as I LOVE to comment- many times uninvited.  Good, this way I can do it in private and in writing, because chances that people will come to read it is very slight.  (Don’t tell my editors this.)

So, from now on I will write about things, life and how I see the world.  If you are so lucky to run into or even follow this blog, you’ll get to see my point of view.  I can’t promise that you’ll learn anything from it, more than likely not, but I think I will.

My next blog will be on the hottest topic around here, the Flood.  Stay tuned.