First reply

Cancer is brutal and in affecting so many of us doesn't become any less brutal. Illness can make a person feel so alone at times in the sense of being truly lonely and beyond help. I clicked on this video because it reminded me of something i was thinking when i recently learned that an adorable blind cat had cancer. I don't mean to make some weak anthropomorphic link but the older i get, the less i believe that life resembles anything fair, and i had this response when I thought about this beautiful pet. I almost wish i were religious because maybe that could offer some comfort that we are experiencing the worst of it right now. I personally don't have that comfort and i just felt like it was a punch in the face that this cat could be so sweet and life affirming despite her disability and yet face more hardship which this time couldn't be resolved and how rough that would be for the owner. But i think he might have even said something along the lines of if she had a genetic susceptibility to X in terms of her vision impairment it could also be associated with Y. Not sure if i got that right but making it clear that more than one hardship might be par for the course. And then this _did_ make me think of human medical conditions and human suffering where a person has overcome one set of extreme odds only to get blindsided by another. I think maybe people almost tend to want to avoid the subject of terminal cancer because we want to say things that will make a person feel better but feel at a loss as to what to say. That's true of me, it's difficult to express anything directly to Mel because it seems like anything i could say would be not enough. But how sh1tty is that, when a person most needs human affirmation, maybe the tendency is to fall silent; a lot of people speaking up have a form of cancer. This is something else i brood about, recently i read about the experience of some people who found that once they had been diagnosed with serious illness people "run in the opposite direction", so I'm glad to see this is one thing that doesn't seem to have happened to Mel. 🖤 Also, congratulations on your remission 👊I'm not above anyone else who feels like they don't have the right words to say and it's because you don't want to make reference to scary things while trying to offer encouragement maybe. I know the brutality of cancer having seen it take away one of the closest people to me. And I haven't had it myself but a close friend had it, and there was a period where i had to wait on something being ruled out where my eyes quickly got opened about the possibilities. Doesn't even take long but the education can be distressing to learn about - we are all so mortal and so vulnerable to different forms of cancer. More and more people do survive cancer but based on the experience of someone else i was close to, medical treatment for people who have survived is an area where more work needs to be done. Because a number of people live with the side effects of treatment that helped save their life. We could do more to improve quality of life for cancer survivors. Similarly i believe that people should be "empowered" to choose a painless passing away surrounded by loved ones. Give people control where they have control over so little. (Law is different everywhere) This may help people make decisions about how they want to spend the time they are told they'll have and offer some relief about the worst of possibilities. And any other consideration that gives people with a terminal diagnosis more options and less worries understanding that everyone will be different. I just want to wish you good luck man, to you, to Mel, to anyone reading with cancer or any other health condition affecting their life in a severe way. I wish you relief from suffering, and an ability to find ways to rise above turmoil. There's so much more to this than meets the eye. Any person learning they have a condition like this is also likely going to learn a lot about other people too, and some of that learning is going to be tragic. And the insight that could be associated with it might remain kind of underground. I feel like culturally something needs to open up here about learning what people go through, i think there's a cultural tendency to tune in more to the feel good stories only. There's something i want to try and explain but i don't really have words for it. It's more of a yearning for medicine to find its way to new means of offering people hope and for our cultural fear of our own mortality to not cause some people to find themselves isolated in their moments of greatest need. I feel like i wish we had something more of an appreciation for what other people learn existentially through unwanted hardship instead of, you know, obsession with TikTok dances and stuff. Especially when it comes to intersection with creativity. I think some of the most powerful ways we are able to move each other is through a process of catharsis. Should you or anyone else respond at any point, if I'm quiet, please know ahead of time it won't be because I'm ignoring you. Not able to use this platform normally at the mo. My heart just goes out to anyone confronting this, and i wish you all relief from suffering and only wish there was a way to provide it. All the prognoses are so different which probably doesn't help on some level, it's a bit labyrinthine. For anyone feeling lost in the labyrinth, hang in there, you know I don't have a magic wand but please don't let anything deceive you into thinking you don't matter as a human being because you've had to stare into an abyss. It's quite the opposite and I hope that culturally we can learn more from you and that medically we can do more for you. In Australia chances of getting skin cancer alone are mind bogglingly high, there's a point where you and us becomes an artificial separation because not too many of us can go through life untouched by these processes. The more open we can be about it with each other, the better. F cancer. Peace.

Damn i hope u recover from your cancer

@@jhhhh7094 thank you, the best they can do is stop it from spreading or reaching the brain/central nervous system at this point. I'm still dumbfounded considering I just went in for back pain/difficulty walking.

I’m so sorry to hear that, it is absolutely terrifying and heart breaking. Stay strong, all the best

@@lieny thank you, it's devastating to say the least. Thankfully my oncologist was quick to meet me in hospital and didn't give me any other choice but to fight. I have bad days and weeks, but I try not to let my feelings affect others. Praying for others helps a great deal 🙏

Hope you beat the cancer and recover...prayers

He is s brave soul and he is not alone.You will see him in this lady taking care of her gifts stall at bukit bintang kl,or selling tissue papers near an escalator at a shopping mall or every where you go and see them by the road side,salute their souls and love them as you can.

I am not crying but tears do drop,not so much for sadness but glad that they are brave to move on.

@@mutualink true but I’m not as strong as you are

@@Anusha910 you will be as strong as you like if you want to.i just went through my diary as far back as 1987.i used to be a very fearful person,so fearful and nervous that I sometimes trembled for no reason.Now as I look back,that was due to negative thoughts and negative energy that I harboured due to bad experience (being bullied,mocked etc as a child).Over the years I learned to overcome them by reading good books,learned from people who were stronger,more positive minded through courses etc.Now you feel I am strong but I started young as insecure,inferiority complexed person.If I am strong now it is because I made up my mind for a better life many years ago.You can if you want to.God bless you.

🙏🙏🙏. Rest in peace. It was announced on his Instagram that he passed away.

Hi Carol, please do write, yourself. I just wrote another comment. I haven't had chemo myself but it did a number on a friend of mine who is a survivor. Please forgive me if you respond and I'm quiet as I can't use this platform properly at the moment. I was just trying to articulate things that are hard to find words for and one of those feelings is a wish for a cultural shift. More and more people survive cancer but medicine sometimes has a long way to go in ensuring quality of life for cancer survivors. The power of someone being honest about their condition and the insights (not only the feel good moments) they have developed during the processes they've been through is something i feel like we could all learn from. But i think there's a lot of fear around cancer, culturally, and not for no reason. The thing is it commonly affects us, and on some level, we don't actually talk about it openly that much, making the honesty at the outset of this piece already quite radical, because you know there's going to be a double whammy of slightly taboo subjects, by which I mean things that may be generally swept under the carpet. Firstly though i don't think the rest of us are truly separate at the time we don't experience cancer - purely in that statistics show this is an illusion, that statistics show cancer will likely touch us across our lifetime one way or the other. It may be considered "part of life", the same way you can have an accident at any time. Secondly, i think at the surface level people can also be uncomfortable with prognoses that cannot be beaten with self will or medicine but can only be lived with. But again, once you plunge below the surface level, people's lives have often been touched and they can recognise it but it's not always something that is acknowledged. Art is something that can help people get beneath the surface, it can help people having a rough time achieve catharsis and it can also stimulate ideas that can help us reach new epiphanies as individuals, about ourselves, about other people, about life, about humanity, and even the d word for mortality that the AI censor will delete my comment for if i write it. Your voice matters, please do write. F cancer. Peace. ✌️🌿

Morphine and fentanyl will be what's easing his pain. Not god.

@@antinataliz9633 gods will

@@Sukiyaya470 there is no god. If there is one, he or she is evil. One would have to be blind to not realise this, looking at all the stuff happening in the world. Or simply brainwashed.

@@antinataliz9633 up to you , if have god or don’t. Up to your believe.

@@Sukiyaya470 yes, sorry but I don't believe in supernatural stuff. There is a reason prayers don't work, but medicine do. Science works.

Anything can happen. U can get paralyzed tomorrow. Don't gamble with life, don't have kids.

@@antinataliz9633 prayers for him 🙏🏼

The fall and cancer are separate stories. Now turbo cancer is rampant coz of that thing being put inside people's bodies, it contains sv40. Research.

The Path of life.

Don't have kids.

Don't have kids. Don't gamble with life.

Jesus should have taken on the cancer himself.

The only death metal was Doldrey, check it out

Yeah screw god.