About "To Live 100 Years"

To Live a 100 Years is an amazing feat. One could surmise that it is something impossible to achieve. Yet, with the era of the new technology a lot of baby boomers had actually gone quite a lengthy life as we are ushered to the many possibilities of staying young. It is not of course reversing the old age but a saving grace of keeping one's self, healthy, active, and cognitively perceptive as they grow older. As in the medical parlance they would say: "conscious, coherent, cooperative, ambulatory, afebrile, not in acute respiratory distress with normal vital signs."

Although we have science and other fields helping us out cater these possibilities, we still live in an imperfect world full of commercialism and plagued with pollution. Everyday, we are bombarded with tantalising ads of foods and products that we thought could satisfy us and help us live the instant lives we are forced to pursue due to the busy cycle of our lives. Awful as it may seemed to be but it is us, that has to make the decision of following the path we should follow without being curtailed by all these seductions of a glorified appetites. 

Karen at Day 13 of
Chemotherapy 1 

During the years when we have all the energy, mobility and agility of a young lad, we never care to think of all these. Not even a single thought of how our eating habits could impact our health as we grow in age. And that was what happened with my very close friend, Dr. Karen Morata, who at an age of 48 had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She had always been an on the go person, sleeping like a chicken especially when urgent calls come up for either c-section operation or normal delivery of babies for her patients. She ate a lot of b-b-q every now and then with friends just to hang around and get out of the monotony from time to time with the busy medical schedule. She loved different kinds of meat and dairy products you could think of, munching the same thing as you and me could think about of what MC Donald's, Jollibee and other fast food chains and a la carte restaurants could offer. What's the difference? Why on earth one could get this dreadful disease, or shall we say, atrocious depletion of vitamin B17, as what the new science had revealed saying that cancer is but a vitamin deficiency? Yes, one could say it could be hereditary or probably just how one person may have lacked the ability to combat the toxins she or he lived day by day. Should we continue to live just like that or should we do something that could help millions of people save their lives and get on track into the healthy lifestyle that would bring about the potential to live up or even more to a 100 years?

Karen with Zac
Day 15 of Chemotherapy 2

Many young people or perhaps mid forties and fifties had succumbed into this long time malady of cancer and never regain back the health they ought to have. There are those who also fought their way out and have given inspirations to others in living a healthy good life style like Jane Plant who had inspired Karen with her book "The Plant Programme" and Kristen Matheson . When Karen was diagnosed with an Invasive Ductal Carcinoma-in-situ, solid type, nuclear grade 2, histologic grade 3, 2.4cm size, no definite lymphovascular invasion, with foci suspicious for perineural invasion, tumor within 0.1cm of the nearest surgical margin, in her right breast, she then jokingly said to her surgeon: "then let's remove both breasts so I could really choose well, the size I needed for silicon replacements in breast augmentation." And they both laughed. Deep inside she was of course perturbed of having such a disease, yet she held on to her faith that if the Most High has given this things to her as a prize jackpot, then it means she was opt for something great. Being a single mother of a 5 year old, a pillar and provider of the family of her old mom and dad, her sister and brother, and brother's family of five and having this ill-fated diagnosis was something one could probably think of giving up already. But where is she getting all her strength to continue working despite all her undergoing chemotherapies, her inner joy and peace to live life to the full and her charisma to take the harsh side of life with jest?

This is her story. This can also be your story. We share this to the world so others could see how she lived normally and how she coped up with things and daily hassles of life and hopefully with her example could also inspire millions of people who have the same predicament. As she jokingly say to some of her co-cancer patients: "When are we going to fight? Is it when we are about to die and could not move and all that we could do is crawl into our own coffin? Or shall we continue to fight and fight when we are still enjoying the glory of breathing, of moving and being able to walk and even run? Let's fight, fight, fight!!! Get rid of all your dairy products and live a healthy lifestyle of eating vegetables and juices which we haven't done before." It's our time. See you all to my 100th Birthday!"

Karen wasn't just tested with just one breast cancer. After the 1st slice and 4 chemotherapies she had undergone, the cancer cells persisted to grow. This time was on her right breast prompting her oncologist to let her undergo again another radical mastectomy, 4 chemo sessions and added very expensive "Her2" treatments to prevent recurrence. But did all these deter her to continue living? Despite all sufferings and pains she still maintained that inner joy and peace, believing that in God's mercy and love all these shall pass. She still maintained the same advocacy: "Live a healthy lifestyle, continue fighting while still enjoying the glory of breathing while looking forward to that 100th birthday". Cheers to everyone. Let us strive to live to 100 years. Let us give life a chance. Let us give her a chance. Let us give her son, Zac a chance to grow a fine man with mom beside him. Let's all pray for her and be united to beat cancer by joining in her cause. Share this post to everyone you know, most especially those that undergoes the same journey.

If you want to contribute for her cause, please follow this link. 

https://www.gofundme.com/tolive100years

                                                                                                          -Jerome Noel-
                                                                                                           (The Guardian)