Statistics
reveal that more young people are succumbing to cancer. How do people in the
prime of life cope when these sleeper cells go on the rampage?
December 2007
Jaason von Bannisseht
is a creative, artistic and sensitive Dutch-Indonesian. Despite being gay, his
boyish good looks and soft, jet-black hair made him a hit with the girls as
much as the boys. “Ahh, isn’t he gorgeous?” I’ve
heard women whisper, “I wish I had hair like that!”
After a drawn-out problem over transferred
credits at the Belgian university where he was studying, he decided to move
back to Holland
and finish his master’s degree there. Just as he was finding his feet – with a
job he loved at an arts organisation and working on a number of his own
experimental video projects – he began having splitting headaches in the spring
of 2006.
After weeks of suffering, his doctor advised
him to go for a brain scan, or MRI, and it revealed that he had a couple of
tumours growing in his 26-year-old brain.
“This all occurred at a moment in my life in
which my dreams were coming true after a turbulent adolescence, years of serious
setbacks and depression,” Jaason confides. “This
aspect of my life has been quite drastically pre-empted. I’ve been forced to
exercise an unbelievable amount of patience.”
Cancer occurs when
cells in your body start behaving badly, and copying themselves incorrectly. While
we all host defective, or cancerous cells of this type in our bodies, our
immune system usually keeps them under control. For any of a number of genetic,
environmental and lifestyle reasons, this process can go haywire, triggering
cancer.
Although cancer is still rare among young
people, statistics reveal the incidence is on the rise. This is particularly so
when it comes to brain cancer, one of the most deadly forms of the disease. In
adults, the number of brain tumour cases in the United
States and Europehas increased by up to 40% over the past two
decades, with men between the ages of 20 and 40 the most affected.
However, experts are divided on whether more
young people are actually succumbing to cancer or whether the difference can be
explained away by advances in diagnostic techniques.
“When the neuro-oncologist
told me that I had two rather large brain tumours, my first thought was
surprisingly logical: there are two growths in my head that don’t belong there,
and they've got to be removed,” he confesses. “In retrospect, I think this
approach was a mechanism to avoid complete panic.”
In addition to the shock it caused Jaason, the news left his friends stunned and in disbelief.
We couldn’t quite grasp how someone so young, healthy and vibrant could suddenly
discover, out of the blue, that he had cancer – and one of the most dangerous
forms of it. We worried about our friend and how this disease would affect his
young life.
Of course, cancer is a tragedy at any age. When one of my best friend’s
father, who was the picture of good health and had barely ever had a cold, was
given six months before the cancer in his stomachwould spread and kill him,
the concern and grief this sparked in his loved ones was acute, particularly as
they watched on helplessly as he wasted away.
Nevertheless, there is an extra element of
tragedy when the person is young – it is like they are being robbed of their
youth and sapped of the vigour which should define this most productive, and
perhaps rewarding, phase of their lives.
For Jaason,
relatively good news was to follow after further tests. “The tumours weren’t melanoma– in which case I had a grim
2% survival chance – but, actually, a very rare condition called melanocytoma.”
Being hundreds of miles away from his boyfriend
in Belgium and thousands of
miles away from his estranged parents living in the United
States, Jaason at first felt
lonely and apprehensive, despite the support of his friends in Holland. “My parents,
closest friends, and other family members were spread out through five
different countries. Being so far removed from each other wasn’t easy for any
of us,” he recalls.
Being far away at such times is equally tough
for loved ones. I recall how difficult it was to be in another country when my
mother was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago. Luckily for her, her
lifelong obsession with good health and self-diagnosis – which irked us as children
with our “Mum, don't fuss” attitude – served her well: she’d found the cancer
in the very earliest stages of development.
Although her tumour was malignant and she had
to have one of her breasts removed, she didn't require any further therapy. Concerned
at the psychological impact of losing a breast, I suggested
reconstructive surgery, which my mum dismissed with her usual absence of vanity
– and her obsession with good health. “At my age, I don’t need to worry too
much about looking pretty,” she said. “Besides, I’m not having artificial substances
pumped into my body.”
Fortunately for Jaason,
his boyfriend, Dimitri, decided to take unpaid leave
to move up to Holland
and support him through the toughest period. “My partner stopped his own life
in its tracks and focused on me and my needs,” Jaason
explains. “Taking care of an ill person is absolutely draining, and implies
that you focus less on yourself. This is not sustainable.”
Even at its grimmest, life can deliver some
unexpected rewards. Jaason had been reluctant to
inform his parents about his condition. Being conservative Protestants, they
had been unable to come to terms with his homosexuality and their relationship
was extremely strained the preceding seven years. He feared that if they learnt
about his condition, they might not be sympathetic – which would’ve been
devastating. But needing some familial love and fearful that he might die
before seeing them again, he got in touch.
“My relationship with my parents improved
almost infinitely,” Jaason says, recalling a scene in
which his conservative Christian parents sat in the waiting room with his queer
friends. “An impossible scenario had taken place: radically differing spheres
of my life were overlapping. I thought at that moment: if this is possible,
then I can survive this operation!”
Jaason’s surgery was to prove to be a
profound and turbulent time for him. “I begrudgingly accepted the hand of cards
I’d been dealt,” he explains. “Of course, I also thought ‘but why now?’ At some
point, however, you realise that this is a fleeting and a rather senseless
question.”
On the day of the operation, determined to
survive, he refused to bid farewell to anyone, even though the tumour pushing
against his brain stem could well have killed him once he went under the knife.
“The cliché of seeing a film of your life
history is actually not so cliché. I processed my past, smiled at seeing mental
images of being a child at home with my parents and countless other beautiful
memories,” he says. “I felt satisfied with life and not afraid to die.”
Jaason survived and his robust recovery
was to be tempered by another serving of bad news. A month after surgery,
during his radiotherapy, he learnt that he had developed other cancerous
growths on his spinal column. “Walking around with two tumours on your spine
feels not unlike two time bombs that are ticking away,” he compares. “On the
other hand, I could get killed in a cycling accident tomorrow. I suppose I've become
more sharply aware of my fate and vulnerability.”
For the last year or so, Jaason
has been in recovery. In addition to causing him pain and discomfort, the
debilitating effects of his radiotherapy have had a profound effect on his work
and social life. He can only work on his studies and video projects at a mild
pace, and when he overexerts himself, as he is prone to do, he spends days
recovering.
On the social side, his condition has cemented
and strengthened his relationship with many of his friends. However, it has had
a downside. “I feel that I lost some friendships in this process ... May be
some of my friends in my age group are occupied with realising their own plans
and ambitions, and may be feel uncomfortable confronted by disease,” Jaason speculates.
This is not uncommon for young cancer patients.
Dr Archie Bleyer, a specialist in adolescent and
young-adult cancer at the CureSearch National
Childhood Cancer Foundation, explains that young adults are more likely
to feel stigmatised, since fewer of their peers have had experience with
cancer. “One of the biggest struggles in doing anything medically is to overcome
the psychosocial challenges,” he noted.
Even during his recovery, Jaason
is trying to get on with life as best he can. At his boyfriend’s recent 30th
birthday party, he spent hours DJ-ing and whipping
the revellers into a frenzy. Later, we sat together for a long chat in a
quieter corner. Lighting up a pipe, he said with an ironic smile: “Can you
believe it, some of my friends are upset that I'm smoking? They tell me it's
not good for my health.”
“What? Are they afraid you’ll get cancer or
something?” I replied, and he chuckled. Charged up with positivism, he told me
about his determination to revive his life. “I’ll soon be turning 28. My dream
job and a master’s degree, among other ambitions, are waiting for me.”
“There isn’t yet a cure for my disease, but I
can’t let this ‘kill’ me before it actually does,” is his sensible conclusion.
