For cancer patients like me, and for others who suffer from chronic or life-threatening illnesses, natural disasters don't put health on the back burner.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the ongoing struggles of those with chronic illnesses even in the face of external crises.
Suleika Jaouad's quote emphasizes the resilience and ongoing challenges faced by individuals with chronic or life-threatening illnesses. It signifies that their health concerns remain paramount and are not overshadowed by other difficulties, such as natural disasters, illustrating that oneβs health is always a priority, regardless of external circumstances.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech about the perseverance of individuals facing chronic illnesses.
After my diagnosis at age 22 with leukemia, the second piece of news I learned was that I would likely be infertile as a result of chemotherapy. It was a one-two punch that was my first indication that issues of cancer and sexual health are inextricably tied.
Just a few years ago, at the age of 22, I learned I had an aggressive form of leukemia. I needed intensive chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant to save my life. Back then, my doctors told me that I had a 35 percent chance of surviving my transplant.
When I was diagnosed with cancer at age 22, I learned just how much cancer affects families when it affects individuals.
I remember my first day of chemo as if it were yesterday, hanging up my favorite summer dress like an athlete retiring a jersey. Within a few weeks, my waist had shrunk to a double zero - the size it was when I was in the sixth grade. My cheek bones jutting out. Rings under my eyes. Skin the color of chalk.
In my darkest days in the oncology unit, I promised myself that if I ever got into remission one day, I would become a stronger, healthier and better version of my precancer self.
Today, my brother and I share almost identical DNA, the result of a successful bone marrow transplant I had last April using his healthy stem cells. But Adam and I couldn't be more different.
Here is my biggest takeaway after 60 years on the planet: There is great value in being fearless. For too much of my life, I was too afraid, too frightened by it all. That fear is one of my biggest regrets.
When I am in the battlefield, I love it more than my wedding night with the most beautiful of women
In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.
If we have the courage and tenacity of our forebears, who stood firmly like a rock against the lash of slavery, we shall find a way to do for our day what they did for theirs.
Every year, an average of 9,200 Americans are murdered by handguns, according to Department of Justice statistics. This does not include suicides or the tens of thousands of robberies, rapes and assaults committed with handguns. This level of violence must be stopped.
There is a determined though unseen bravery that defends itself foot by foot in the darkness against the fatal invasions of necessity and dishonesty. Noble and mysterious triumphs that no eye sees, and no fame rewards, and no flourish of triumph salutes. Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields that have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes.
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