We Are the Lucky Ones

Thoughts on Recovering from Cancer Survivor, Dave Colligan

It’s difficult to describe the emotions you go through when diagnosed with serious illness. For me, it was more relief than anything else, that I finally knew for sure what was wrong with me. At 23 years old, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes. I had two tumours identified: The primary one, about the size of a closed fist, in my chest and the secondary one, about the size of a plum, in my neck. Hodgkin’s is not hereditary and nobody really knows what causes it.

I actually wasn’t that surprised to hear what my diagnosis was as I’d been sitting around in the hospital while all sorts of tests were conducted, reading the women’s magazines in the various waiting rooms – there’s never anything for the guys to read! I read an article about the Australian singer/actress Delta Goodrem, who also had Hodgkin’s, and I just knew.

The doctors told me that my chances of recovery were pretty good, around 75% in fact, so I almost felt like a fraud when talking to other cancer patients during my chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions as they had typically been told that they had a much slimmer chance than me. The positive outlook that these people displayed under such difficult circumstances was inspiring to say the least

My friends and family reacted in very different ways to my diagnosis. Some people cried, some people were very matter-of-fact – I guess everyone has their own way of dealing with adversity and I tried to help people deal with it as best I could. For me, I just coped by trying to live as normally as possible, and encouraging people to treat me as normally as possible.

I’m usually a fairly active person, but cancer and cancer treatment really saps your energy levels so I passed the time when I had no energy by doing a bit of reading. Two of the books that I read, which will be no surprise to those affected by cancer, were Lance Armstrong’s books It’s Not About The Bike and Every Second Counts. Lance is a very inspiring person himself, but there was one line in particular that I liked which I think Lance attributed to one of the many cancer patients he became friends with:

“We are the lucky ones…”

When people ask me whether I ever think that I was unlucky to get cancer, I always reply that if I had my time again I’d still want to go through what I went through. This is pretty hard for a lot of people to understand, and maybe it takes a ‘life-changing’ event to really understand it, but I really do feel lucky to have had this experience. Sure, chemo’s not much fun, but being faced with the prospect of losing your life puts a lot of things into perspective and highlights what matters to you and what doesn’t. I know it’s a cliché – and a slogan - but life is short and (depending on what you believe) you only have one.

So I reckon it’s good to make the most of it.


Dave