Working in the medical field for more than 5 years now,  and particularly in the last few years, working in oncology, I have got an insight into how fragile our lives really are. We live in bubbles, secure in our own illusions. A feeling that things will always be the same. It is not always so. We are all just a word, a sentence or phone call away from the bubble bursting. The picture-frame shattering into a thousand shards; jumbled pieces that may never be the same again.

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This is true for all of us, whether we see it or not. And getting diagnosed with a medical problem, particularly something that sounds as scary as “cancer” can shake the very foundations of a person’s life. I have seen that happening, I see it every day. But I do not write this to spread despair or sorrow. No, I write this, because even where I saw darkness and suffering in patients’ lives, they showed me so many ways in which they find joy and light for themselves. 

 

They picked up the broken pieces of their lives, accepted them and rearranged them till the picture was bright again. Till the cracks arranged themselves into the intricate patterns of snowflakes, and light could shine through. A thousand different colours, a changing picture with just a small shift of perspective. Like a kaleidoscope. And those that try to find the light for themselves, add a bit of light and colour wherever they go.