Last year, around 400 walkers took part in the Champions’ Walk, organised by the Coimbatore Cancer Foundation (CCF). There were cancer survivors, families, people walking in memory of a loved one…and the air resonated with hope. This year too, the Champions’ Walk is organised by Coimbatore Cancer Foundation to raise awareness about cancer cure and prevention.
The walk is dedicated to cancer survivors and hopes to shatter the myth that a diagnosis of cancer is pronouncing a death sentence. And to reinforce the fact that there is hope for those with cancer; there are survivors and there is life after it. CCF was established in 1991, by K Sreenivasan, a cancer survivor himself. Cancer Made Me is an autobiographical account of his experience ,
CCF conducts screening and awareness camps on early warning signs of cancer, provides financial aid for underprivileged patients and psychological counselling to patients and their caregivers.
Most of us have had a family member or friend being diagnosed with cancer. And therefore, most of us know what it feels like to muster every ounce of courage and battle it out. We know what it feels like to surrender to hope and sometimes, to the unknown. We learn to become more grateful; we learn to live in the moment; we learn new things about hope and trust. That is why it means a lot to be part of this walk. In doing so we are raising a toast to the enormous spirit of human courage.
The 1.8 k.m.-walk is on October 2. It will be flagged off from the Cosmopolitan Club in Race Course, at 7 a.m.
A few lines by Jane Levin
I am becoming more forgetful
Friends laugh
tell stories about
misplaced keys
forgotten names.
A few gently ask if chemo did this to me.
My doctor refers me to an MRI.
You don’t understand.
For just one moment
I forgot that I
have /had/may have
cancer.
I have become a magician
watching in amazement
as fear disappears.
Sounds of audible delight escape
as the faint outline
of hope materialises.
and as hope takes shape,
remembering begins.
