Good Bye, Ananth

Hello to all,

Another head and neck cancer warrior, Ananth Shenoy went to meet his maker on November 20th in his sleep after battling a fierce battle for almost 10 years. He was one of my cyber friends whom I befriended after I myself was hit by this unforgiving cancer. His passing saddens me to the core. He was constantly motivating, inspiring and had never lost for words when it comes to uplifting the spirits of fellow cancer survivors. I am one of those lucky people who had the opportunity to get to know him and whose lives he touched. When I underwent my second surgery in August last year, he wrote to the Mouth Cancer Foundation Forum informing everybody and asking everybody to pray for my recovery and when I did recover, he wrote to me and said that it was the best news he had ever got. How could you not like such a person even though you've never met? How could you not feel anything when such a person is gone? The world seems quiet without him.

We chatted through yahoo messenger several times. I talked to him about the shortcomings I face socially for being tongueless, about how people just look at you in a certain way once you start saying something and sometimes they just look the other way just because they have a hard time understanding you. Its as though trying to understand you is so hard and laborious and is such a waste of their precious time. We talked about having to resort to the PEG tube for food and how embarrassing it could be having to do it in public. And he never failed to make me feel good about myself again. He said that if others refuse to pause and try to understand what I have to say, then, its their loss because I have a lot of great ideas to share and I can understand perfectly what they have to share. In other words, I can enrich myself from them, but they can't.

He would use him own experience in the cancer journey to point out how fortunate I am compared to him, He said that he's willing to trade places with me anytime..

The last time I chatted with him he complained that he was in a lot of pain and was taking doses of morphine to numb the pain, And now, he's gone...and all that pain is over...

Rest in peace, Ananth. You are terribly missed!

Sharifah