CANCER IS A COWARD

Seven years ago , lung cancer arrived uninvited, unrelenting. Stage four. It slammed into my life like iron cleaving bone , smoke thick and choking, inescapable. Every breath felt borrowed; every heartbeat, a bargaining with death . Hospital lights droned overhead, antiseptic clinging to skin, monitors ticking a cold rhythm I could not command. My body shivered, nerves aflame, warning currents hammering through marrow and memory alike. Each moment was a tightrope over the void of what might be lost. I survived then with pure powdered Lingzhi and cell-burning chemo pills. Each bitter, grounding spoonful was deliberate, a ritual of defiance, a tether to life. Tumour shrank. Lungs remembered breath. Shadows lingered, whispering that survival is never final.

Months ago,  it struck again .  Uterine  cancer.  Surgery . My uterus removed, leaving a hollow ache that reshaped who I thought I was. But the coward was not done. In the weeks after  surgery, doctors discovered malignancy in my intestines —another assault, another battlefield. Pain coiled, relentless, twisting through muscle, sinew, and hollowed spaces of my abdomen. Each breath, each step, each swallow became negotiation. Fear pressed against me, but so did resolve. I would not collapse. Fleeting memories of my children’s laughter, my husband brushing hair from my face, tethered me to life.  Grief, disbelief, and determination tangled into one current, stitched to survival. Warmth from sunlight through the window, the hum of a fridge, the scent of cooked rice—small details anchored me in the living world, insisting I fight.

Three weeks ago, chemo began. Limbs trembled. Nausea clawed at throat. Exhaustion pressed molten, heavy, threatening to hollow me.  Each moment, each choice, a micro-battle.  Morning, take chemo or pause? Midday, lift a spoon of Lingzhi or collapse? I wanted to refuse, let the tide take me. But I learned the rhythm of choice: victories stitched together, one measured spoon of Lingzhi, one intentional inhalation, one defiant step. Small triumphs appeared—hands gripping a pan without falter, legs carrying me across a room, lungs filling without fear—victories on a map of survival.

YKB. Morning. Blood and marrow awaken. Stem cells surge. Circulation carries repair, oxygen, renewal. Strength returns to places chemo hollowed. Every mouthful pulses vitality.

YKK . Evening. Timed to kidney rhythms. Cleanses, steadies adrenal tremors, softens fear lingering in chest and gut. Heat spreads through me. I endure. I will endure.

YKC Bedtime . I chew two tablets, warmth settling through core and sinews. Faith, hope, survival incarnate. Each swallow claims a fragment of the day, a fragment of life reclaimed. Shuang Hor pulses through the ritual, a tangible bastion I hold onto, a reminder I am not alone in this fight.

Together, they form a constellation I hold. Fingers lift a pan, legs carry me across a room, arms fold laundry. Every movement, every breath, every swallow: defiance embodied, life reclaimed.

Small victories stack: laundry folded without collapse, standing at the window, sunlight scattering across the floor. The hum of the fridge, distant traffic, warmth pressing on skin—life in fragments, tactile, immediate. Each step, bite, inhalation: I am alive. I claim this life. I refuse to yield.

Life waits, fragile, sacred. Every act, ritual, heartbeat tethers me, secures years I refuse to surrender. Chemo is a tide, relentless, but I lean on allies, chew powders, move forward. Lungs remember breath, survivors of seven years past. Uterus is gone. Intestines carry secrets and weight. I carry them, carry myself, carry life.

I rise from the floor, trembling, back aching, fire coiling through chest and limbs. Fingers wrap around the spoon of Lingzhi, heat, strength, and resolve coursing through me. Knees lock. Breath roars. Shoulders lift. Every sinew, every rhythm, every heartbeat declares: cancer is a coward. It waited for my fear, but I do not give it that. I stand taller, chest open, eyes blazing, unbroken, unbowed, unyielding*. Each movement a manifesto. Each step a challenge. I am here. I am alive. I fight. I will continue. Cancer will know the full measure of what it means to face me, emboldened by Shuang Hor and the rituals I have chosen. My life remains mine, and I take it back, one breath, one bite, one resolute heartbeat at a time.