HOW TO PREVENT CANCERS

I’m not an expert on Cancer. In fact, I am far from being one. I am just a son who lost his mother to Endometrial Cancer, and I am hoping that less family will have to experience what my mother and my family had gone through in the course of my mom's year-long battle with the big C. Mom was the first cancer patient in the family - and definitely will be the last!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an entry about my Mom’s battle with Endometrial Cancer. It was just one of those posts that I occasionally churn out in hopes of getting people to notice something. I blogged about how wonderful my mom was and how naïve I was about Endometrial Cancer. Heck, I didn’t know what an ‘endometrium’ was.

As soon as the post went live, I invited some friends to read it and I subsequently decided to go on with my daily routine. A few days after that, someone named Kaz commented on the post and an emotional light bulb exploded. It turns out Kaz is one of the amazing women behind Womb Cancer Support UK. And after a few correspondences with her and her comrade Debbie, I knew that I have to do something myself.

To tell you the truth, like most people (my age) that I talked to, I was clueless. I didn’t know where to begin or where to start. I realized afterwards that I don’t need to be an expert on Endometrial Cancer. Otherwise, I could just go back to school and study Oncology. We don’t need to be experts. We just need to be aware that Endometrial Cancer exists and that it kills people. Awareness drives us to take action, to take the first step, to know the risk factors and symptoms of Endometrial Cancer, and to educate ourselves on how we can cope if one of our family members is at risk or is battling this disease.

We can lie supinely on our backs and say ‘no, it’s not going to happen to my family’. But you know what, I was in that same position a couple years back. I thought Cancer couldn’t happen to anyone. And a person must be really, I mean really, unhealthy to be able to contract that disease. I guess not. And do you know what sucked? I realized this when it got my Mom in 2010. She died a year later. Too late.

We can just go on our everyday lives and hope cancer will befall on any family but ours. It’s like an inverse lottery; everyone has a ticket but no one wants to be picked out. But Cancer has its own rules. It just doesn’t latch itself onto the usual suspects like the chain smokers or the obese – although these people have a very high risk on getting the diseases, so if you’re one of those, you might want to rethink your lifestyle choices – Cancer affects anyone. It could be the people who haven’t exercised a day in their lives, or the people who meticulously count their calorie intake. It could be you next.

I don't want to sound too morbid about this topic. But the truth of the matter is – Cancer kills. You know the drill when you’re buying a house, for example. Security also comes first, because you don’t want cold-bloodied murderers to get into your house and hack on your family members with a knife, now would you? I didn’t think so either. So, what do we do then? Lock the doors and ensure that everyone is safe. Protect yourself and all that you love dear because Cancer is the last thing you’d want to invite into your home.

How many women do you have in your life? Could you afford to lose any of them to Endometrial Cancer? What are YOU gonna do about it?