Addressing Stigma's

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I met many people who knew someone who had cancer or who was beaten by cancer. And I never had the fortune to meet any of these cancer afflicted people.

When I was in the company of people who knew about my illness, they used to shy away from me and I wondered at times whether it was my illness that made them uncomfortable or my openess in the expression thereof and I realised that it was the latter.

I started feeling as though I was alone and that there were hardly any real people with this disease. People that I could actually see and not those just spoken about by others, read in statistics or found on the internet. I started wondering whether the 10 million people who are diagnosed every year, actually even lived in Cape Town for they certainly didn't exist in the muslim community.

I recall my first visit to the Oncology Unit at Groote Schuur, sitting in the waiting room with many others who were predominantly aged 50 and older and whose faces showed the pain of their challenges. I recall leaving the waiting room and standing outside convincing myself that I was definately not meant to be there that I was too young to have cancer that I was healthy and definately in the wrong place and certainly in the wrong time in my life.

Little did I know then that I was in exactly in the right place in the right time of my life.

I recall listening to thikr on my ipod and happily waiting for my appointment and exploring all the notices on the walls and observing the people like I was witness to a movie I had just switched on.

Then a lady walked up to me and asked are you in the right place? and I replied with an uncertain yes and she then said but you dont look like you have cancer.

It was then that I first became aware that to most people cancer had a face, and as the ensuing months passed I realised that to most people I did not fit the cancer profile that they had conjured up.

What was a cancer survivor supposed to be like, to look like and of what ethnicity or religion. I searched for these answers asking friends, family, strangers and no-one could really give me a clear reply except to further raise an eyebrow at my apparent "denial" or from my perspective "positivity"

My suspicions that the stigma attached to those who have cancer were further proved by personal experiences with people.

In exploring this stigma I experimented becoming very vocal about my illness and expressing statistics in conversations about the volumes of people who have cancer. conversations which were quickly changed to more comfortable subjects.

Why is the word cancer so uncomfortable, why then does it create such fear, create such aversion. Why?

Its because the thought of dying makes most people uncomfortable that most people knows someone who has been beaten by cancer rather than someone whose time it was to return to our Creator. Its for fear of getting cancer. Its the illusion that this is something that only affects other people, something read about in books or seen in movies. Its people who are thin. People who have no hair. People who are to ill to be out of bed. People who are unable to live a normal life. People who unable to enjoy life and people who are perceived to be consumed by organic food and prolonging their days.

I found that the stigma was worse in the muslim community, that cancer was not something spoken about. That muslims dont get cancer. That you must have done something wrong that you are being punished like this. That your disease is a bad omen sent from your creator. That good muslims they dont get cancer.

So I became everything the perceived cancer wasn't. I decided to give cancer a make-over!
I became comfortable and in touch with my own mortality. I looked cancer in the mirror and decided I was more than that. I had no hair, I lost weight from my chemotherapy, I was ill but I was better off than most people who complained incessantly about constant physical problems. I thought about those things that would make me happy and started doing that, I ate more healthy and more chocolates. I empowered myself with the knowledge that Allah loves those whom He tests, that this illness that I have that everyone dreaded was a blessing and not a punishment.

I became an artist, scarf stylist, aspiring magazine editor, a Orphanage activist, a da'wah volunteer and best of all a cancer activist! and along the way met many wonderful dynamic cancer survivors who were on the same journey to live life to the fullest.

So the stigma that cancer receives should be re-thought by those who created it. Because if having cancer means having a renewed love for life then I choose cancer anyday.

Cancer does not discriminate between age, ethnicity, culture or religion.

It reminds you every moment every day to be gratefull for at any moment at any day that this could be the end or just the beginning....