For 27-year-old Gezane, however, her wedding almost became the concluding chapter of her life when she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer merely 10 days after the ceremony. Battles stage 4 blood cancer, diagnosed days after her wedding.
"I believed I should get to experience more to life," Gezane said. By Yu An - 2 Oct 2024
Cocooned blessings from your dearest family and friends, the event marks a beautiful introduction to a new chapter. For 27-year-old Gezane, however, her wedding almost became the concluding chapter of her life. Instead of a sweet honeymoon trip, she had hospital trips for life-draining chemotherapy sessions.
Instead of looking forward to a baby, she looked forward to seeing the next day. Mercilessly blindsided by the diagnosis, this is the story of how she remained fiercely positive and came out a victorious cancer survivor.
Denial leading up to the wedding. It all began around a week before her wedding in September 2023. Gezane had just exited the shower, and was toweling herself dry when she noticed a lump on the front of her neck. Despite this being a year ago, she clearly recalls feeling blood drain from her face the moment she noticed it. “I knew that lumps on the frontal side of our necks are dangerous,” she said.
Fearing what this mean for her health, she tried denying the severity of the issue at first. “I had wanted to monitor lump for a few days, but she told my mother about it,” she chuckled. Gezane’s mother immediately rushed her to their family General Practitioner (GP) for an inspection, which revealed bad news. There was not just one lump in her neck, but multiple lumps. She was then referred to a specialist, who conducted a CT scan on her 2 to 3 days before wedding, she received the results. With no further info on severity of her cancer, she was lulled into a false sense of security as she carried on with the wedding.
Given her age, everyone around her dismissed the possibility of the lumps being any serious form of cancer. “Looking back, we were almost lucky to be kept in the dark. I don’t think I could have carried on with the wedding if I knew it was stage 4 cancer,” she said. The real bombshell dropped after her PET/CT scan, which revealed a harrowing image of cancer cells in her body. In a very real way that left no room for denial, Gezane saw just how far the cancer cells have spread. She was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer affects the body’s lymph nodes.
Cancer starts in the neck, progresses downwards. In Gezane’s case, cancer spread as far down as her pancreas & nurse had handed her scan results in open corridor at hospital, be4 sending her & her husband on their way. “Would you rather it be me or your family?” In the quietness of their car, she felt weight of reality sink in & one negative thought followed another.
Thoughts like “Why me?”, “I’m too young”, most importantly, “I don’t want to die” flooded her mind, in that moment, her husband asked her a question that became the North Star guiding her in the following months:
On instinct, she replied, “Of course, I’d rather it be me.”
The question completely changed her outlook on diagnosis. Instead of feeling “
lost and angry at the world”, she now is lifted out of crippling self-pity. “When he asked me that question, I realised I would rather is herself than my family. No matter how many times I had to choose, I would choose me suffering over my loved ones,” she explained. At the thought that it could have been her family or husband facing this illness, she felt some relief that she one diagnosed instead.
“She felt like she was fighting cancer for them as well,” she said. Gruelling 7-months after being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.
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