A Quote by Dawna Markova

When cancer first came into my life, people all around me treated it as the enemy. I was told I had to join the medical team and we'd fight together to defeat it. This was the wrong thing to say to someone who was the last one to be picked for any team. I was much happier sitting on the sidelines and encouraging the other players. I was totally unskilled at defeating anything. So I secretly went my own way and decided that I was free to choose the meaning of the healing experience. I decided I would develop a friendly relationship with the cancer, which was something I was good at.
When you have cancer, it's like you enter a new time zone: the Cancer Zone. Everything in the Tropic of Cancer revolves around your health or your sickness. I didn't want my whole life to revolve around cancer. Life came first; cancer came second.
In my experience with cancer, I was one of the lucky ones: diagnosed and treated by a qualified team of professionals as well as benefiting from the advancements in cancer research.
The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.
But the atmosphere of being part of the Indian team is totally different from any other team. People start looking at you in a different way. But the senior players and support staff really helped me in ease into the team.
I decided to start anew-to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true my own thinking. This was one of the best times of my life. There was no one around to look at what I was doing, no one interested, no one to say anything about it one way or another. I was alone and singularly free, working into my own, unknown-no one to satisfy but myself. I began with charcoal and paper and decided not to use any color until it was impossible to do what I wanted to do in black and white. I believe it was June before I needed blue.
You've got to get away from the idea cancer is a disease to be cured. It's not a disease really. The cancer cell is your own body, your own cells, just misbehaving and going a bit wrong, and you don't have to cure cancer. You don't have to get rid of all those cells. Most people have cancer cells swirling around inside them all the time and mostly they don't do any harm, so what we want to do is prevent the cancer from gaining control. We just want to keep it in check for long enough that people die of something else.
But when I first got cancer, after the initial shock and the fear and paranoia and crying and all that goes with cancer - that word means to most people ultimate death - I decided to see what I could do to take that negative and use it in a positive way.
When I had my cancer, the chemotherapy took my hair away. So then I decided I would just keep it short, and this is my signature now. The great thing about it is that I am a bit of a chameleon, so you can put a wig on me and I look totally different.
I think one possibility [in the future] might be chemotherapy. And I'm always hesitant to say that because it makes it sound like I'm against chemotherapy. Right now, chemotherapy is the best cancer treatment therapy we have. But let's say we find some way where we can almost genetically engineer the DNA of our being and fight cancer that way. Then, the idea that we used to pump poison into people to fight off cancer will almost seem like the use of leeches or something.
I was a bit nervous when I first entered the Indian dressing room. Some of the players sitting out there had 10 years of experience and were sitting in front of me. But then Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri told me that there are no seniors or juniors in the team. So I could open up to them easily and irritate them with my questions.
The truth is, if you asked me to choose between winning the Tour de France and cancer, I would choose cancer. Odd as it sounds, I would rather have the title of cancer survivor than winner of the Tour, because of what it has done for me as a human being, a man, a husband, a son, and a father.
The battle against cancer has made me strong. It's like winning a war! When I was diagnosed, I was told by doctors my kidney, liver and other organs could fail. It was tough. I didn't know if I could save my life. But I was positive, and because of that, the doctor told me that I would be a man who would never have cancer.
My efforts to join the fight against breast cancer all began around the fact that women were getting short-changed in the medical arena.
Please make sure everyone knows how much their messages mean to me. They have added greatly to my peace of mind. I only wish some of the writers would take a more positive approach to the menace of cancer. I've got it, sure; but I'm not afraid to use the word. Some of them act like it's a dirty word. That's the wrong attitude. We should all bring it out in the open, recognize that it exists, and fight it! Cancer is everybody's enemy. We can't 'think' an enemy out of existence by ignoring it.
Sometimes I feel like I never actually make any of my own. Choices, I mean. My entire life it just seems I never...you know, had a real say about any of it. Now this last one, cancer...all I have left is how I choose to approach this.'
The field of U.S. cancer care is organized around a medical monopoly that ensures a continuous flow of money to the pharmaceutical companies, medical technology firms, research institutes, and government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and quasi-public organizations such as the American Cancer Society (ACS).
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