How a Filipino expat won the battle against cancer

Gulf News

How a Filipino expat won the battle against cancer. Sharon Mendoza Dreisbach shares her journey as a cancer survivor in the UAE.  Read the full Gulf News article: http://gulfnews.com/your-say/your-view/a-message-of-hope-from-uae-to-the-philippines-1.2046095  See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv

Transcript

00:00My reaction when I was told that I have breast cancer is, first things first, the acceptance.

00:22Regardless of how good the technology around you, how expert your medical practitioners

00:29and modern medicine around you, but if you yourself don't accept your situation, that

00:37is already like putting yourself into a deathbed because you will start experiencing deterioration

00:46in terms of your, not only with your physical, but also with your emotional and psychological

00:53aspect as well.

00:59I leave everything to Allah.

01:02I look at it something that's like a blessing.

01:06Instead of asking Him why, I prayed and basically it says, what is your message to me, why you

01:14have given me this particular cancer.

01:22Once you have it and you are being cured from it, you need to maintain a healthy lifestyle

01:31as well.

01:32So, for me, definition of healthy lifestyle is not basically only about the food that

01:38we eat, but it's basically the totality of the person, being healthy physically, emotionally,

01:45mentally, and most especially spiritually as well.

01:53I have to continuously use my profession, not only counseling my students, but also

02:02spreading awareness about breast cancer, specifically to what we call the young adult

02:09and to show to them that here I am, I am already a survivor and you have the cancer.

02:16You can still fight on it and you can basically still have a good life.

02:24Allah has given me this opportunity also to meet a lot of people in order for me, I believe

02:32that He is basically using me as an instrument in order to build a bridge between one country

02:42to another country to support people who are suffering from breast cancer.

02:48So my support group here in UAE, which is the BLESS, when I told them about the situation

02:54of the Breast Cancer Society in Southern Mindanao, they themselves said, like, we have medicine

03:03which is just kept in the warehouse.

03:06We are willing to give it to them, send it back to the Philippines so that the other

03:11members can also use it.

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