A certain way to avoid cancer: Why there are no true survivors

The title sounds absurd, paradoxical, and painfully true.

My good friend, Yoyong and I, once laughed about this line during his medical board review—technically, I was his review center. He pointed it out from ”Robbins’ Pathology,” in the chapter on Neoplasia. A brutal sentence disguised as an academic fact.

Here’s another brutal fact: There are no true cancer survivors. Only people whose cancers were caught early, the lucky few with thyroid cancers, early breast cancers, or tumors removed before they could misbehave. They are cancer-free, not survivors. “Survivor” implies the war is over. It never is. That’s what makes us human: the unending battle.

We are all survivors anyway. We started as a lone sperm cell racing against millions, tunneling through the zona pellucida like microscopic gladiators. Several cell divisions later: you.

And carcinogens? They’re everywhere. We eat them. We breathe them. We willingly bathe in them every time we unlock our phones.

The real carcinogens are the things we enjoy: alcohol, cigarettes, processed food, infections, and stress disguised as lifestyle.

And because life has a dark sense of humor, even people who never smoke still get lung cancer. Children get leukemia, osteosarcoma, retinoblastoma, and Wilms’ tumor.

Biology doesn’t negotiate. If cancer doesn’t claim you, something else will: heart disease, infection, accidents, calamities, or sheer probability.

People love saying cancer didn’t exist during the Renaissance or before the world wars. Not true. We simply didn’t know what we were looking at. The mid-20th century revolutionized medicine: pathology, histology, imaging, and genetics. Suddenly, the invisible became diagnosable.

Treatment remains a challenge. But humanity is stubborn. We keep trying.

Appendicitis once killed people routinely. Today, a simple appendectomy saves millions. Add Caesarean sections. Add anesthesia, pharmacology, obstetrics, and surgical technique.

Life expectancy soared: 25 years in 1800, 50 in 1950, 80 by 2015. Filipinos now hover around 72.19, slightly above the global average of 72. We expanded our lifespan, but we did not escape death.

Harsh truth: we begin dying the moment we are born. You can survive a terminal illness and still meet your terminal moment. When your time is up, it’s up. You say your goodbyes.

There is no such thing as a smooth life. But life is still beautiful, which makes it horrible, wonderful, and worthwhile.

Enjoy it. Cherish it. Spend it on people who matter. Do the things your soul keeps nagging you about.

If you want to live forever, there is a way:

Share what you know. Your craft. Your wisdom. Your small pieces of truth. Because even when memories fade, kindness persists.

Lessons persist. The fragments of yourself you leave behind are the closest things we have to immortality.

Share the gift of life and wisdom. That is how you outlive yourself.

Melben Jochico,
melbenjochico@gmail.com