Dying Young

My father died at the age of forty-nine. I was barely twelve when the doctor certified him dead on March 18, 1990, 12.40 p.m. Cause of death was sudden cardiac arrest. Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the heart’s electrical system malfunctions. In my father’s case a sudden asthma attack went out of control causing electrical problems that kept the heart from pumping the right way. He died at the age of forty-nine. He died young.
Although I’ve inherited asthma from my father, I am determined not to die young. My determination remained strong up until last year when my faith was shaken.
March 2005, fifteen years after my father’s passing away I was going to be twenty-seven years of age and full of hopes and dreams. I was eagerly awaiting end of the year to get married with the man whom I love. But eagerness was shattered when an abnormal abdominal pain sent me for an ultrasound scan. Through the scan the radiologist found a huge tumor covering part of my liver. Upon further investigation ordered by a renown hepatologist in a local hospital found that the tumor mass covered up to thirty percent of my liver. Because it had the pattern of a benign tumor I had an option of either leaving it as it is or getting it removed through a hepabiliary surgery. After much consideration, my fiancé and I and registered as husband and wife and decided to go with the second option which changed our lives forever.
Five months later, in August 2005, I went for the operation as scheduled. What was supposed to be a four hour long surgery had prolonged to eleven hours of intensive battle to save my life by the dedicated team of hepabiliary surgeons. What was supposed to make me well, didn’t make me well but revealed the secret that my body had been keeping from me.
It turned out that the tumor covered up to sixty percent of my liver, and the doctors had to remove the entire right lobe of my liver. But that was not all, in fact that wasn’t even the issue.
“The tumor mass that is in your liver was merely a secondary attack of a small but malignant tumor sitting right at the head of your pancreas,” my husband relayed to me the solemn words that had spoken to him when I was first wheeled out of the operation theatre.
I cried very hard that day. A week after the surgery, I was still barely twenty-seven. I thought of my father. I thought of dying young. Maybe my fate was to die young like my father.
The doctors gave me six months to live. They told my husband to take care of everything and try to fulfill my dying wish.
August 2006, one year after I was diagnosed with 4th stage pancreatic cancer, I am still very much alive. My liver has outgrown the normal grow-back of fifteen percent to almost seventy-five percent. My cancer is very much localized now. My oncologists in NCI Cancer Hospital call me a miracle child.
Although it has not been an easy and smooth flowing journey this one year, but I survived. With more than a little bit of effort to change my lifestyle and my eating habits, I persevered. With a more than little bit of love from my husband and those around me I fought on. With more than a little bit of faith in God I stand victorious.
Today, I am telling you this story because I want you to have that fighting chance that I had one year ago. I want you to know that a diagnosis is not the end of everything. I want you to know that you can change your fate and outlive the death sentence that your doctors or your condition had given you. I want you to know that through a change of lifestyle, support and encouragement of loved ones, and your undying faith in God, YOU can reverse your situation.
It is not an easy journey, but I am willing to walk this journey with you. Someone walked with me before, that I can share this story with you. Just allow me to bring you through the journey that I’ve been through. I will keep updating this blog with personal stories and experience that you may gain from it. So feel free to come back anytime you want for updates. Or you could simply subscribe to site and I will send you an update every time something new is added.
I’ve let you into my story. Will you let me walk with you?