Marking time with a cancer survivor

By Grace Segran

JAKARTA (JP): We were sitting in the International Baccalaureate (IB) coordinator's office two weeks before school was about to start. My daughter Elizabeth had waited all summer for this occasion -- to discuss her IB program with the school. She had just got A's for her GCSE O levels, and was ready for the IB challenge.

As I sat there and watched her discuss energetically about her choice of subjects and activities for the two-year program, I could feel a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. Having just completed chemotherapy and radiation for stage 2 breast cancer, I wondered if I was going to be here when my baby graduates from high school in 2001. Would I be able to share with Elizabeth the joy and pain of growing up and the academic events of these two exciting years?

I prayed that God would allow me to do so.

The school year, like birthdays and anniversaries and Christmases and New Years, are milestones that mark the passage of time. They have since become very special to us. When you have cancer and your days are numbered, every milestone becomes a celebration of life itself. And a thanksgiving to God, the giver of life.

There is another day that has become a milestone in our lives -- the day of my diagnosis. We remember it with much sadness and pain but with each passing year, we get closer to the magical fifth year of remission. At this point in time, I have a 45 percent chance of getting cancer again. With five consecutive years of remission (i.e. no sign of cancer), my "cancer" clock will be reset to zero. This means that my chances of getting it again will be the same as everyone else's. One year of remission is over, four more to go!

Surgery, radiation and chemotherapy may thrust a cancer patient into remission, but fear of recurrence continues to intimidate and hangs over one's head like Damocles' sword. It is a very real fear and there are documented statistics to show the rate of recurrence for certain cancers, depending on how far gone it was when it was discovered.

But ultimately, these are only statistics and in my case, I pray that I am in the 55 percent group that will not get cancer again. I cannot, and will not, let the fear consume me. Or else I might as well give up living now. I cannot live life as though I was going to die soon. So I choose to live it with hope. It is only then that I am able to live life to the fullest.

I have been learning a lot about life from my sixteen year old. For example, she has taught me that it is more enjoyable to purchase things that are fun and exciting to look at. Ever the practical person, I buy things that will serve their purpose well and that look like they are going to last forever. I am often suspicious of things that look pretty -- how can something so frivolous be practical? Somehow utility and beauty do not jive in my mind.

Well, I have found that since then it is certainly more enjoyable to eat toast from a plate with Piglet on it rather than from a plain white Royal Dulton that is going to match my other pieces of crockery. And when this trusty but plain-looking computer becomes obsolete, I would like an iMac because it looks so cool!

Another lesson that I have learned from Elizabeth is the importance of making memories. Tradition creates memories, and Elizabeth loves tradition. That is why she loves to celebrate birthdays and annual festivals such as Christmas and New Year.

Elizabeth loves to take pictures and then set them up in a scrap book or album. We have loads of photos that she has taken during vacations and many other occasions. Once in a while she drags us two old fogeys to the sofa and relives those memories. I now see the importance and value of these activities; the memories will be the legacy that I will leave her.

Learning to defer gratification was one of the things I had taught Elizabeth as a child. But now that is exactly what I do not do -- I want to do many things and do it NOW. There is an urgency to experience new things, to go to old, familiar places as well as new destinations, to enjoy life as much as possible.

You do not have to wait till you have cancer to celebrate life, to live it to the fullest or to make happy memories. Do it now.

Grace Segran (rsegran@cbn.net.id) was a former editor of parenting and health magazines in Singapore. She now lives in Jakarta and freelances for various publications.