“Cancer Survivors”

Always heard this term and couldn’t really figure it out or comprehend it properly! Why only Cancer! Why can’t we say “Open Heart Surgery Survivor”!? what is the unique thing with the Cancer that the healing patients afterwards are called “Cancer Survivors”. 

The Cancer as a disease won’t only attack your body; actually its within your body; It’s an insider not outsider, It’s not an infection, or wrong medication, troubled weather implications, incident trauma or anything else, it’s your own body attacking its own cells! Cancer is an Internal silent-painfulness war against you! 

The medical surgical intervention is the easiest part and it ends by removing the impacted part/s or cells, however this will be the beginning of long and painful healing process usually called “Chemo-Therapy”! there is no single clear definition of this journey, every Cancer Survivor will give you his/her own definition, and all of them are correct. 

The Chemo-Therapy will not only attack the ill cells (tumor), but your entire body, not just your physical structure, but also your emotional state, your spiritual values, your social life, your family, your professional progress, your financial situation, your immune system, everything will be harshly and aggressively attacked leaving you to face your dark future! Unless… you fight back! Therefore, my definition is “The endless battle of faith, persistence, determination and strength”. 

Faith = Believing in yourself, 

Persistence = Acknowledging the realities with all difficulties and challenges, 

Determination = No rest! What-so-ever, 

Strength = The power to keep going! The motive to keep shining!

At EHS Function, I believe we have so much similarities with the above definition.

EHS is not a very rewarding function comparing to other functions, rarely we find a CEO who is coming from a EHS background, and at the same time, very few EHS professionals are changing their career to other than EHS, this is because we are so much passionate about what we do! “Faith”.

Our daily work is around the challenges and difficulties that we are facing at all work fronts created by others, most of the time you feel that EHS folks are invisible, unneeded and sometimes unsupported, however we are always there to protect, serve and support! “Persistence”.

We fight so hard to prevent fatalities, once we achieve our target, we continue the hard work to prevent the lost time incidents, we take no rest till we eliminate the medical treatment cases, we raise the bar up to prevent even first aid cases, the fight continues against serious or potential near misses, we enjoy no rest and spare no efforts till we complete our task with zero harm! “Determination”.

It’s never been easy to investigate a fatality or severe lost time incident, however we have to continue the hard work with a smile, hope and trust that the coming is better, we are frequently faced with no approbation or appreciation from others like clients, partners, consultants or even our own organizations when the performance is poor, however we take deep breath, accept the reality and then continue moving forward, we always believe that if a person get injured at work site, still we have the responsibility to protect the other hundreds or thousands! “Strength”. 

We are all a real; “Cancer Survivors”, the only difference is that I pray to Almighty Allah (GOD) to protect us all from such calamities. Amen.

So, always reinstate your “Faith”, improve your “Persistence”, strengthen your “Determination” & last but not least, motivate and recognize your “Strength”. 

PS. 

I was diagnosed with Cancer early 2008, a year after I completed my Chemo-Therapy treatment and 5 years later I was medically declared clear. I defeated Cancer with my Definition “Faith, Persistence, Determination & Strength”, and since my Chemo-Therapy process was completed and my career achievements are getting better and better.