Passing on the daffodil

According to the WHO, approximately 84 million people will lose their life to cancer between 2005 and 2015.

With the new season of spring, the budding daffodils bring along a ray of hope — hope for happiness, hope for health, hope that this year fewer lives succumb to the scourge of cancer.

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 84 million people will lose their life to cancer between 2005 and 2015 if no intervention takes place.

Fifty-year-old Karamdad may be one such unfortunate soul. Waiting for a taxi outside one of Karachi’s largest public hospitals, Karamdad, with a prostate cancer in its advanced stage, sits without much hope of treatment. “They say I have to get admitted but I can’t afford that. I have children to look out for, debts to return-No I can’t afford that.”

With an estimated 70 per cent of cancer patients coming from low and middle income countries, Karamdad is not the only one who can’t afford another chance at life. With any luck, chances are that these numbers may be reduced. Luck alone won’t be enough, however.

The WHO has devised a four tier cancer control program whereby the disease may be kept under check through prevention, early detection, treatment and palliation. If knowledge is aptly translated to action (as the program aspires to do) the daffodils, a worldwide symbol of the ongoing struggle against cancer, may finally bloom.

“Good diet, healthy lifestyle and abstinence from tobacco and smoking!” The mantra for cancer prevention is that simple. However, with approximately 20 per cent of the global population smoking, implementing this mantra seems like a long shot.

World Cancer day, as commemorated every year on February 4th , has based its theme around cancer prevention for a few years now. 2011 is all about getting ‘sun smart’!

“We receive ultraviolet radiation from the single largest source – the sun,” explains Dr Saleha Altaf, senior resident at a local health facility. “When absorbed in large amounts following unprotected or prolonged exposure, the UV rays react with the skin pigment (melanin) inciting permanent damage and eventually skin cancer.”

Medical terminology and jargon cannot prepare you for the graphic reality of cancer.

Curled up in the hospital bed, forty-year-old Zareena, reduced in weight to that of a child, feels the impact of these cellular changes every minute of her remaining life. With the cancerous mass having invaded her body system, she knows what it actually feels like when melanin reacts with the UV rays or when the cells get uncontrollably mitotic. What begins in painless silence eventually leads to an excruciating end.

So do we become nocturnal just because sunlight may prove to be harmful? No, not at all. Precaution and awareness is the key. From a walk in the park to a trip down to the mall, an extra splurge of an effective sun screen may be all it takes.

With almost a hundred different kinds of cancers sitting in the waiting, awareness is crucial. To begin with, 40 per cent of these potentially fatal cancers are preventable. This in itself is encouraging and the fact that still more can be treated and cured upon early detection means that even if the worst happens, there is no reason to despair.

Rafia’s story resurrects hope. It was a life-changing moment for the fifty five-year-old when just before her daughter’s wedding, the doctors broke the news to her: she had been diagnosed with colon cancer. In a state of shock at hearing what she thought was a death sentence, she could not grasp the tide of information that followed. “Colectomy, chemotherapy, rehabilitation…” all seemed like random, meaningless words to her. But all was not lost.

“Although my life seemed to fall apart then, I found something to hold onto- my family. It all became easy thereon.” Rafia braved a surgery and intensive chemotherapy while heavily relying on her children and husband for support.

“It’s been seven years since the diagnosis and I am still here, playing with my grand children now,” says a grateful Rafia. “It’s not easy, especially when you start losing hair or get nauseous at the drop of a pin, but it’s curable. You can overcome cancer.” From the depths of despair to recovery and optimism...Rafia’s story is a daffodil of hope, passed on to the hopeless.  So spread the word, spread the hope and keep passing on the daffodils because cancer can be conquered.

Disclaimer: The names of the concerned have been changed in order to ensure confidentiality.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 6^th, 2011.