When a Cancer Researcher Became a Cancer Patient

I am a husband, father, grandfather, and also a Christian, a Sunday school teacher, a fellowship mentor, and a university professor. I have taught anticancer drugs in medical school and conducted cancer biomedical research for decades. Yet one day, life gave me an identity I never expected: a cancer patient.

During a health check before my retirement in 2021, doctors found an abnormal shadow in my lungs. At first everyone assumed it might be a lung condition. Later, after rectal bleeding, I underwent an endoscopy, which revealed a malignant tumor. Looking back, the lung abnormality actually prompted me to undergo a more thorough examination, allowing the cancer to be caught early. My attending physician later remarked how remarkably the timing had worked out.

As a researcher, I was familiar with the molecular mechanisms of cancer, drug actions, and clinical processes. But it was only when I became a patient myself that I truly experienced the deep fear of waiting for tests, waiting for reports, and waiting for a treatment plan. Knowledge can explain disease, but it cannot fully remove the tremor in one's heart.

What I could not let go of was not my achievements or research reputation, but my wife Chris, my children, and my grandchildren. The thought that I might soon not be able to accompany them stirred an inexpressible sorrow. Death was no longer a concept from a textbook, but something bearing down on the heart like a storm.

During that time, all I could do was earnestly seek the Lord. My pastor called to strengthen me with God's word and prayed with me. Chris and I also prayed together, entrusting the road ahead to God. It was then that I deeply understood: faith does not mean pretending not to be afraid, but knowing, even amid fear, that one has not been abandoned.