At the outset, I want to thank the team at CanSurvive Malaysia for making this event possible.
My interest in their talks and endeavours first prompted me to start volunteering with CanSurvive Malaysia two years ago. Convinced by my eagerness to contribute, I was thereafter selected as the MC for last year’s conference before appointed organising chairman this year. I truly appreciate the opportunity to play a bigger role in support of CanSurvive Malaysia, and their laudable efforts to share knowledge on surviving cancer with all Malaysians.
I lost my favourite uncle in 2012 to lung cancer. A non-smoker; a lively man; a loving uncle. He was 53 years old when cancer interrupted our lives. After battling long and hard against it for four months, his body succumbed, bit by bit, in exhaustion; then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.
My grandma, on the other hand, survived cancer. Doctors diagnosed her with Stage IV advanced stomach cancer in her sixties, and told her the odds were not in her favour. Grandma took that to mean she had a chance to beat cancer. She braved chemotherapy, she tried herbs, she altered her lifestyle — she chose the holistic approach, to attack cancer from all possible angles. Grandma went on to live for another 20 years and passed peacefully of old age.
Cancer is not a stranger to many of us. At some point, cancer always manages to find a way to claw itself into our lives; either by latching on ourselves, or onto our loved ones and people we know. The experience of cancer encounters, and how we cope, are unique to each and every one of us. However, we are all here today because we share one similarity: we have choices.
We choose to be here. We choose to challenge cancer. We choose not to be victims of cancer, but conquerors of cancer. We choose to utilise a holistic approach to fight cancer. And, at the end of the day, our choices are going to redefine and reshape our future.
You can survive cancer.
You will conquer cancer.
Chan Quin Er
Organizing Chairperson
9th Malaysian International Conference on Holistic Healing in Cancer 2019
