My name is Daniel Lins and I live in Brazil. My dad's been in coma for two weeks now in his terminal phase of a brain tumor which he's been carrying for 6 long years. Although he's made everything the doctors told him to do, the tumor always returned. After a biopsy and a treatment at Columbia Presbitherian in N.Y. on Feb95, he wrote some words about how to turn around all the dificulties that every cancer patient certainly goes through and how to minimize suffer and have a different look on facing life one's still have in front of them. He's a very intelligent person.

My dad is almost going away and I must do something to alleviate my pain. I think the best I can do for him now is to share these papers with people in the same situation, since his words are very beautiful and bright. I'm sure he'd like me to help other people. Where else in the Internet should I send it to? I'll be very happy knowing that somebody enjoyed it and intends to spread it over. Be free to mail me back.

Written by: Carlos Alberto Tinoco Marques

These short writings have the intention of transmitting to the cancer patient some advices come from my own experience as a patient, and does not intend, anyhow, to substitute any medical recomendation. Before reading that, submit it to your doctor so that you can take his advice on going on this text.

Be surrounded by your beloved relatives and friends. Call that friend you love so much and who you haven’t seen for years for a visit. Say how much you love him or her. Let your heart and mind be aware of how many people love you. Have your family or any beloved human or pet beside you. Love is very powerful. It doesn’t matter the source.

Ask a psychology-field professional for accompanying during your treatment. It will have a great utility since you will need your spirit and intellect to be as educated as possible so that you have energy, motivation and strong-mindedness at disposal.

Don’t waste your energy with negative ideas and thoughts.

Always think in a positive way. It will bring an extra supply of energy which you will certainly need during the treatment.

Don’t fear the word cancer. During the past years, it has been associated to other negative words like suffering, ache, pain, and that’s why it’s become a so hard and heavy word. That association is not often true. Medicine has evoluted so much and scientists’ new discoveries provide today several treating alternatives which complement themselves and make solutions emerge! Today, cancer has not necessarily been that incurable or uncontrollable disease anymore.

From my own experience, I can tell you that I’ve never been through physical pain due to this illness. Brain cancer, in my case. Even mental suffering hasn’t got me because since the beginning I’ve decided that I would not admit suffering in my life, and I’ve succeded! I’ve found out that I wasn’t obliged to suffer and that was my option. I’ve simply decided it strongly and that’s it. I haven’t failed so far.

You can do the same! Have in mind that suffering is not obligatory, even if you’re sick. Suffering is a creation of the human mind. Don’t add more of it to the already unavoidable torments.

You must probably have already asked yourself: why me? I would answer that it’s you because it must be someone, and you are someone! If you won bunches of money in the lottery, would you also ask yourself that question? Certainly not.

There is no reason for sorrow. It makes you feel like a "poor stick", which is energy stealing.

Face reality with no revolt. Life knows what it does.

"Things are not what we would like them to be, not even what they should be. Things are exactly what they are." - Santo Agostinho.

Remember that everything has its bright and good side. Dung may be an excelent manure too.

Observe that during the treatment period long, your sensibility probably has increased. So, take advantage of this in order to learn more about life and yourself. Take your benefits and profit, not everything is loss.

Turn this period into a trip, a tour inside yourself and take a look at the scenery. There’s nothing to be afraid of, you are inside your own element, you’re like that tree, those flowers, those stones, those clouds you’ve seen during the trip. You are part of the same universe, the same Creation. If a leaf becomes dry and fall, nobody laments. It’s part of the Creation porposal, just like disease. Everybody wonders: Why? Have you asked yourself "why have I become ill?". Probably, the same reason for a leaf dries and falls: change and renovation. Life is made of changes, we want it or not. Don’t we be afraid. Let yourself enter this condition, like a bird who receives the new wind course.

Don’t give it all up in the middle of the treatment, even if there’s no immediate cure, or even if it seems long or painful.

Overlife. Overlife is also life. Live it.

Keep yourself busy, and if you are able to, produce, create, invent something. There’s always something to do which we have never done before.

Show your cells that you are alive! Move, stir it up!

That’s an excelent time to give the example and show that you can turn around the most difficult moments with optimism and no desperation. Be the example to those around you. World is very destitute of good examples.

Keep yourself optimist and smiling. Everybody will also smile in return. This optimistical environment is positive and you must be the first one to build it. You’ll be the one who will determine how the surrounding environment will be. No one else.

Nature is never wrong. Try looking at it with different eyes. Everything is prettier than you think it is. For me, a butterfly is more than a butterfly. Look closer: the butterfly is a sobbing flower.

We should be born very old people and, during life, improve body and soul, until we become babies and then, die, entering in our mothers’ uterus. It’d sure be much more beautiful.

Carlos Marques
Brazil

That’s all of my father’s writings. I hope his words become help for others’ lifes. Everybody is free for reproducing and redistributing his text. God bless you all.

Daniel Lins
danilins@uninet.com.br
Rua Antônio Parreiras

Soon after my 20th birthday I was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. So rare and unusual it only shows up in white males between the ages of 10 - 20. Mostly in the leg area either the tibia or the femur. Mine was in my right thigh femur. I was shocked and could not believe I had cancer. I was only 20 and had my whole life ahead of me, a good job, wonderful wife and a brand new baby girl.

A pain had started bothering me months earlier and had become unbearable and my thigh had swollen so much that it looked like a body builders leg in comparison to my other thin leg. When we went to the cancer center I was told different things. Some assured me if it was cancer they could get rid of it, but I might have to lose my leg. We really did not know yet what it was. We thought and hoped it was an injury from all the skateboarding and ball playing I had done in the past. I was taken in for testing, skeletal x-rays and CAT Scans were done on me. My first test was long and I was afraid. When I was brought out the doctors came in and told us what we feared most, I had cancer. I did not think it was that serious. I thought now days many cancers were curable. Then I found out not only did I have a cancerous tumor but it was a rare type that grows and spreads along the bone moving up towards the pelvic area and is hard to get rid of. It could not be cut out because that would cause it to spread worse.

I had hope that the doctors could cure me. I could not accept or think that I would die. I was going to win. Treatments began immediately. The tumor in my thigh had grown to the size of a football and I had several radiation treatments to shrink it. Then the chemotherapy began. I was injected with several different kinds of chemo, toxic chemicals used to kill cancer cells. They attack and destroy all fast growing cells, including the ones that make our hair grow. It wasn't long after treatment that I began to lose my hair. My brother in-laws kept their heads shaved because I had no hair. I guess they did not want me to feel bad about being bald. I took everything in stride and tried to stay positive. I was up and about every chance I could.

I became so sick and fatigued from the treatments and some days I could barely walk across the floor. At times I was angry and sad. Why was this happening to me. There is no known cause for the rare type of cancer I had. You can't inherit it or prevent it. I could not understand why I had cancer. It was like a dream and I wanted to wake up and be normal again.

After months of painful tests and treatments, tests showed I had no signs of cancer cells. I started to feel good. My hair grew back I was not tired and could eat again. Because this type of cancer usually comes back they wanted to do an experimental treatment on me. It would be serious, an all over body radiation that would completely destroy my immune system and any dormant cancer cells. There was a chance I could die and it would take months to recover from. There was no guarantee that this would work. My mother in-law did not want me to do it but it was my choice so I did. The first treatment was so horrible that I could not go through with it. I was put in a coffin like container and covered with heavy rice bags and had to lay there for what seemed like hours being bombarded all over with radiation. I called her to come and get me and was sick all the way home. She said she could smell the radiation coming from my body. I was sicker than I had ever been from my other treatments for over a month.

Within weeks the cancer returned with a vengeance. I knew it was all over my body. Every night I went to bed wondering what the next morning would bring because since the treatment, it seemed like every day a different part of my body was affected. They found numerous tumors the size of peaches in my pelvic area and my back was beginning to hurt severely. I weighed 135 pounds when this started and now barely weighed 100. I was a walking skeleton and my body was wracked with pain. I did not want to die. Who would at my age. I was nearing my 21st birthday and one morning I woke up and the right side of my face was paralyzed. The cancer had spread to my head. I looked like a stroke victim.

My back continued to hurt and I awoke one morning and could no longer use the bathroom. My bodily functions had quit working. The cancer was growing up and around my spine and had cut off the nerves that controlled these. I was given radiation once more to try and shrink the tumors. If not it would cause me to become paralyzed from the waist down. I was scared and sick. The only relief I had was sleep. I still did not think I would die.

My condition continued to rapidly decline and I went to the hospital often for blood transfusions. My mother in-law took me a lot and the last time she did she asked the doctor what could be done for me. He said there was nothing more they could do for me. She told me on the way home the Doctor said I did not have long to live and he had told me in the beginning I had a slim chance because by the time they saw me the cancer was in the advanced stage.

She asked me if I could think back to when I first noticed a pain in my leg because it could not have just happened. I remember it aching months before I saw a doctor. I could really notice it when I leaned on anything that caused pressure to be put on it. I had the cancer a year before I saw the doctor. I just thought my leg hurt from sports.

I was mad, mad at the world, mad at God, at healthy people who were always complaining over trivial matters. I wish I could have their problems instead of mine. I didn't want to talk about my condition. I could not accept the fact that I was dying. I had Zero reasons to die for. I had a new baby who loved me and I her. I wanted so much to be with her as she grew up.

My last night alive I was sitting with my mother-in law and I looked over at her. We spoke no words but I know she could read in my eyes what I had come to realize "I'm going to die". At that moment she wanted to tell me it was ok to die and she conveyed that in her eyes. She walked my little girl down the hallway to tell me goodnight and I never saw them again. A tumor had grown on my brain and caused blood to swell creating much pressure. I went into a coma and never woke up. Within 8 hours I took my last breath.

My story is not to make you sad or pity me. I'm at rest now, free from the suffering I endured. Don't put off pain that won't go away. If I had went to the doctor sooner maybe I would be here now, but who knows.

Never take for granted, life and those around you. Life is short. Mine was.

In memory of our beloved son

C ROSE crose@ivy.tec.in.us

CancerLink

Last updated 21 April 1998