Weddings are among the most joyous occasions in a person’s life.
Cocooned in blessings from your dearest family and friends, the event marks a beautiful introduction to a new chapter.
For 27-year-old Gezane, however, her wedding almost became the concluding chapter of her life when she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer merely 10 days after the ceremony.
Instead of a sweet honeymoon trip, she had hospital trips for life-draining chemotherapy sessions.
Instead of looking forward to a baby, she looked forward to seeing the next day.
Mercilessly blindsided by the diagnosis, this is the story of how she remained fiercely positive and came out a victorious cancer survivor.
It all began around a week before her wedding in September 2023.
Gezane had just exited the shower, and was toweling herself dry when she noticed a lump on the front of her neck.
Despite this being a year ago, she clearly recalls feeling blood drain from her face the moment she noticed it.
“I knew that lumps on the frontal side of our necks are dangerous,” she said.
Image courtesy of Gezane
Fearing what this could mean for her health, she tried denying the severity of the issue at first.
“I had wanted to monitor the lump for a few days, but my husband told my mother about it,” she chuckled.
Gezane’s mother immediately rushed her to their family General Practitioner (GP) for an inspection, which revealed bad news.
There was not just one lump in her neck, but multiple lumps.
She was then referred to a specialist, who conducted a CT scan on her. Two to three days before the wedding, she received the results.
“In my experience, this is cancer,” the specialist had said.
The soon-to-be bride was not told the stage of cancer at the time.
A biopsy was needed to confirm that, but the specialist recommended Gezane to get the biopsy after the wedding since the surgery would leave visible scars.
With no further information on the severity of her cancer, she was lulled into a false sense of security as she carried on with the wedding.
Given her age, everyone around her dismissed the possibility of the lumps being any serious form of cancer.
“Looking back, we were almost lucky to be kept in the dark. I don’t think I could have carried on with the wedding if I knew it was stage 4 cancer,” she said.
The real bombshell dropped after her PET/CT scan, which revealed a harrowing image of cancer cells in her body.
In a very real way that left no room for denial, Gezane saw just how far the cancer cells have spread.
Image courtesy of Gezane
She was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, which is a type of blood cancer that affects the body’s lymph nodes.
The cancer starts in the neck and progresses downwards. In Gezane’s case, the cancer had spread as far down as her pancreas.
The nurse had handed her the scan results in an open corridor at the hospital, before sending Gezane and her husband on their way.
In the quietness of their car, Gezane felt the weight of reality sink in and one negative thought followed another.
Thoughts like “Why me?”, “I’m too young”, and most importantly, “I don’t want to die” flooded her mind.
However, in that moment, her husband asked her a question that became the North Star guiding her in the following months:
Would you rather me or your family be diagnosed instead?
Image courtesy of Gezane
On instinct, Gezane replied, “Of course, I’d rather it be me.”
The question completely changed her outlook on the diagnosis.
Instead of feeling “lost and angry at the world”, she had now been lifted out of crippling self-pity.
“When he asked me that question, I realised I would rather it be me than my family. No matter how many times I had to choose, I would choose me suffering over my loved ones,” she explained.
At the thought that it could have been her family or husband facing this illness, she felt some relief that she one diagnosed instead.
“It felt like I was fighting the cancer for them as well,” she said.
With this renewed perspective, Gezane started the agonising chemotherapy process.
Chemotherapy is notorious for its extremely painful side effects, because the treatment kills not only fast-growing cancer cells but also healthy cells.
On the fourth month into the treatment process, nurses ran out of viable veins in her arm to use for the chemotherapy.
They had pierced her arm in at least five different places, each time shifting the needle underneath her skin in search of a vein.
“I was crying from the pain of the needle shifting, but I kept asking them to try different points on my arm. I really did not want a PICC line,” she said.
A Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC) line is a 40cm tube inserted into patients’ upper inner arm, and is used for the administration of drugs.
Image courtesy of Gezane
She desperately wanted to avoid it because that would incapacitate her. Patients would require assistance for basic needs, including bathing and changing clothes.
However, after having tried multiple times to find a viable vein, her doctor advised her otherwise. The doctor had to send her for PICC line insertion immediately as she needed to undergo chemotherapy the same day.
Local anesthesia was administered during the surgery.
That means while she could not feel pain in her arm, she was awake and aware throughout the process.
“It was so… scary,” she sighed while recalling the procedure, “I couldn’t feel pain, but I could feel them cutting a hole open to insert the tube. I could also feel the blood splashing out from my arm.”
From that day onwards, the side effects became more severe.
She started to become so weak she could not walk without assistance, and she started throwing up more as her body tried to get rid of the accumulated toxins.
The cancer threw one hurdle after another at Gezane, and she had little control over her health’s trajectory.
She lost the ability to exercise, the ability to take care of her basic needs, and then the ability to walk without assistance.
Even sleep became laborious as she was conscious of the tube permanently inserted into her arm.
Image courtesy of Gezane
Under these conditions, she worked on the only thing she still had any control over, her mentality.
Over the seven months of chemotherapy, Gezane made a very clear cognitive effort to remain positive.
She identified three sources which she drew strength from.
Firstly, she had a strong tenacity for the future.
As a 27-year-old who had just gotten married, she wanted more from life.
She wanted to have a child with her husband whom she had been together with for seven years, and she wanted to be with him till their hair turned gray.
“I firmly believed that I should be able to experience more to life, and cancer should not have been my end,” she shared.
Secondly, apart from her intrinsic desire to experience more, Gezane was also not ready to leave her loved ones behind.
“I felt that it would have been irresponsible for me to leave my family and my husband, especially when we have just gotten married,” she said.
In her mind, she had neither repaid her parents as a daughter nor fulfilled her roles as a wife.
“You better win this fight” was what she thought.
Image courtesy of Gezane
Lastly, she was encouraged by her online community.
Gezane had posted an Instagram reel of her condition before starting chemotherapy, with the intention of spreading awareness.
She was trying to caution people against ignoring lumps in their bodies, especially for younger people for whom cancer is the last concern in the mind.
However, she received an outpouring of support and love from the online community in response to her Instagram reel.
In total, she received around 15,000 comments and direct messages consisting of well wishes and words of encouragement.
There were new messages in her inbox every day she opened up Instagram, which became a staple of strength for her to tap on.
While she’s unlucky to have developed stage 4 cancer at such a young age, Gezane is aware of how lucky she is to have a strong support system.
When asked if she had any words for other cancer patients, Gezane gave an honest and measured response.
“I don’t know if I have the right to say ‘stay strong, find strength to fight it like I did’ to other cancer patients. They can be going through a lot more pain than I experienced,” she said.
Image courtesy of Gezane
While Gezane was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, Hodgkin lymphoma is one of the most curable cancers.
She cautioned other patients against comparing their situation to one like hers, in which she already has a support system in place.
“In that sort of difficult situation, if you compare yourself to another person, things will really get very, very bad,” she emphasised.
Nonetheless, she gave a tip based on her own struggle with cancer.
“Have confidence that you are going to pull through. Not just patronising comments, but genuine confidence,” she explained.
For her, the key to this confidence was picturing her life after chemotherapy. Instead of focusing on the present, she was constantly imagining herself in Macau, one of her most loved destinations.
Gezane actively planned for the trip, and repeated the thought to herself enough that she genuinely believed it.
She dared to hope, and she believed in the picture as hard as she could.
Image courtesy of Gezane
Earlier this year in March, she finished all 12 chemotherapy sessions, and was officially cancer-free.
The doctor cleared her for travelling, and her husband has already taken her to Macau since then. The former UI/UX designer, who is presently unemployed, is now focused on just appreciating life every day.
When Gezane first shared her story on Instagram, she had no idea it would achieve this level of resonance. The two reels she posted have received over nine million and 24 million views respectively.
Nonetheless, she was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who were inspired by her success.
“Hopefully, my story can reach those who are in need of a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.
Also read: 69-year-old single mum in S’pore needs S$68k to continue cancer treatment
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Featured image courtesy of Gezane.
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