Translator: Rômulo Santos Reviewer: Krzysztof Wiankowski
Good morning.
Do you remember what you were doing 1,377 days ago?
Do you remember what day that was?
Maybe if you made a little effort... You don't remember, do you?
I remember well.
1,377 days ago was January 24th, 2011.
At that time, I was 23.
I was studying architecture
and I had just come back from an exchange program in Europe.
At that time, my main concerns
were to get through the semester, go to parties,
look pretty, and decide who to go out with at the weekend,
maybe Rodrigo or Henrique,
or whoever.
During that weekend, I'd spent...
January 24th, 2011 was a Monday.
I'd spent the weekend on the beach with my friends
and I wanted to return on the Monday,
but my family insisted that I come back on the Sunday
and go to a doctor on the Monday.
I had felt a small lump in my neck and thought it was probably nothing,
but my family insisted so much that I see a doctor that I gave in.
"Fine, I'll go see a doctor."
So I arrived at the doctor's office, he examined my neck,
sat back in his chair, looked me straight in the eyes, and said,
"It's cancer."
I was 23, studying architecture,
had beautiful, fine long hair, and I had cancer.
Only those who have ever received such a diagnosis
know the feeling upon hearing those words.
I was much more overwrought than I am right now.
I couldn't feel my arms, I couldn't feel my nose.
I felt as if I had a hole in the middle of my face,
and every time my heart beat,
I felt as if I had an ice cube in my chest.
It was like in that scene with Alice falling into a rabbit hole.
That free fall -- you don't know what's going to happen.
In one moment, I was myself, I had a life,
I was studying to get my degree,
my main concern was who I'd be going out with at the weekend.
And in the next moment I wasn't sure of anything,
my life was simply taken away from me.
It was like I didn't have any control over it.
And at that point, I thought,
"Goodbye dreams, goodbye Henrique, goodbye Rodrigo,"
and that feeling remained for several days.
I'd close my eyes
and all of this would seem like a bad joke,
like those situations where you say, "If I stay quiet here,
someone will come to me and say, 'Hey, I've fooled you!'"
Until I heard from one of my doctors that my problem was Hodgkin's lymphoma,
which is currently one of the most curable cancers
with a survival rate of 95%;
that means, out of 100 cases,
only five people don't survive, or they have to undergo treatment again.
I thought, "Phew, that's great! So nice there's a cure for it."
Imagine how awful it is when the doctor says there's no cure for your disease.
Imagine how terrible it is to undergo another treatment,
to have cancer for the second time.
Imagine how horrible it would be to be part of those 5%.
Even though I had to face a very tough treatment,
I felt I was having control over the situation.
I knew when the chemo sessions would be over,
I knew that my hair would grow back 1.5 cm per month,
meaning after a few months my hair would be long again.
I was part of the 95%. My life was fine.
My hair started to grow again after the treatment was over.
At first, it was a bit weird,
but it gradually returned to its normal state.
I was at college, but I went back to my internship.
I started going out and dating again; everything was all right.
I was fully enjoying my life,
but I always had this slight fear:
"What if the disease returns? What will happen?"
It's normal to have this fear.
Then in February 2013, I heard what I least wanted to hear.
A routine exam indicated that the cancer had come back,
and that moment was 20 thousand times worse than the first time,
because I figured out that I was part of that 5%.
I felt deceived by my doctors,
I felt deceived by my body.
The first thing I may have thought was: "Poor me."
It wasn't: "I'm going to die," but: "Poor me."
Feeling pity is the worst feeling in the world.
I think that we only pity those who we consider unfortunate,
who we consider wronged and unhappy.
At that time, I perceived those 5% as poor people.
I felt really sorry for that 5%.
In my mind, those people were unhappy
and I didn't want to be unhappy.
I wanted to be an architect, I wanted to party, I wanted to travel,
I wanted to be rich, beautiful, famous, whatever,
rather than have cancer and be unhappy.
But I had no choice.
I had the disease and I had to face it, even if I didn't want to.
I didn't have any influence over it.
So, I understood that I had two options:
either refuse to undergo another treatment
and die within a few months,
or take on the challenge and have the chance of living.
It was risky, but I had the chance.
When I was sad,
when I wasn't accepting my situation,
everybody around me was sad,
because nobody dared to be happy around me when I was sad.
How could somebody tell me something good?
How could a friend share their joy
knowing I had cancer, or that I was unhappy and would die?
That wasn't possible.
Family dinners looked like post-funeral gatherings,
nobody would say a word.
We'd remain speechless with a sad expression on our faces,
and it was only then when I realized,
that if I was so afraid of dying,
why not enjoy my remaining time?
If I was really going to die soon,
why waste my time being sad?
There was no point
in being afraid of dying and not enjoying my life.
So I understood that having cancer was not a choice,
but I could choose to be happy.
So I took a deep breath
and I thought, "OK, I'll have to undergo the treatment and accept it,
so I'll decide to be happy."
And that's what I did -- I decided to be happy.
That was not an easy choice,
but it was the most intelligent choice I'd ever made in my life,
because from the moment I decided to resume my life
and thought, "OK, I'll keep my chin up from now,"
my friends started to invite me out again,
I started to spend time again with my family,
we continued to live, I kept feeling alive and active.
You might think that my treatment was very easy,
or that my case was very simple.
It wasn't. It was very hard and I knew the gravity of it.
I knew that a bone marrow transplant today
barely reaches a cure rate of 80%.
But I decided to cut the cancer down to size.
I said, "Fine, I will open a place on my agenda for you,
I will allow you to be part of my life,
but this life belongs to me, this is still my life."
I had to undergo four very tough chemotherapy sessions,
I had to say goodbye to my hair for the second time,
and, moreover, I had to prepare myself for the bone marrow transplant
which was a completely obscure thing to me.
I had no idea what would happen.
If that wasn't enough, at the same time
I was doing my final graduation work in architecture,
which, in itself, was a big deal.
So, that was a period when I had to learn
that I had no control over my future.
I didn't know if I would be able to graduate,
I didn't know if I would survive the cancer,
I didn't know what the treatment would be like.
So, I understood that it wasn't worth stressing over this.
I didn't have any control over that situation.
One day, I was browsing through social networks
and saw that a friend of a friend had passed away.
I read it with that curiosity that everyone has:
"Oh, how did he die?"
and I found out that he was 26 and had been a victim of mugging.
He was the same age as me and had died in a mugging incident.
I thought, "How come?
One moment he was alive and enjoying his life,
and in the next, he was dead, at my age. How absurd!"
So, I began to think what he would say if he knew about my problem.
If he had heard about my story, if someone had told him,
what would he say to me?
I then realized how many people at my age, or even younger than me,
have died from causes other than cancer,
because being healthy is not a guarantee that we won't die.
So, I understood that the only thing we have under control
is the illusion that we have something under control.
Nobody has any guarantees. We're alive today, that's all.
We don't know what tomorrow will bring.
Actually, we don't know what's going to happen in two seconds' time.
This may seem daunting at first,
but if we think wisely about this,
staying calm and having a lot of therapeutic support,
we can see this as a liberating state.
I didn't know if I would be able to graduate.
Not only did I actually graduate,
but I also got the best possible grade in my final work
and I managed to participate in the graduation ceremony,
wearing a wig and make-up, but without the cancer being on stage with me.
Without any pretensions at all, I decided to create a blog
to share what I'd learned about cancer.
My idea, at first, was to share advice on beauty, make-up,
on how to tie a headscarf and other stuff, as the photo shows.
But over time, I realized that people were curious to know
how I was dealing with cancer.
They didn't only want tips, but also:
"You've had cancer twice, so how can you be so happy and elegant?
Is that true? Aren't you lying? Aren't you fooling people?"
And step by step, what started out as fun or a hobby
turned into a profession.
Today, this is my job:
I help people diagnosed with cancer,
so that they understand that cancer is a disease.
It's a very serious disease, but still a disease.
It's not a punishment, it's not a sentence.
I write a blog, I give talks.
I created the project called "Projeto Camaleão"
to provide beauty fairs for cancer patients,
so that they can experiment things on themselves in this new stage
and play the chameleon,
to feel like this animal that adapts itself to its present situation,
in order to keep itself alive.
I really have no words to describe
how satisfying the work is that I do now,
how wonderful it is to find out that somebody lives a better life
after stumbling upon my blog and reading those tips,
after emailing me.
I don't know if I'm part of the 95% or 5%,
and, to be honest, I don't care anymore.
Cancer is not a ghost that haunts me anymore.
I've understood that I will only be sure I won't get cancer again
when I die from something else.
That might seem: Oh, that's sinister."
But it's true.
Unfortunately, nowadays we can't be 100% sure about the cure for cancer.
We can't, otherwise people wouldn't be so afraid of getting it,
some even avoid saying the word "cancer."
I've understood that even though we perceive cancer as a death sentence,
it becomes a life sentence,
because before I got cancer I'd never stopped to think
that I was going to die one day.
Have you ever thought about dying?
For example, you there, with the name tag.
You with the hands like this, almost praying for me.
Or those behind who I can't see very well, as I'm a bit short-sighted.
You are going to die.
That's the guarantee we have in our lives,
probably the only one.
I'm not saying this as a revenge,
as a bitter thing
since I was diagnosed with such a serious disease at such a young age.
It's a piece of advice.
Now that you know you are going to die, enjoy your lives.
Don't waste your time doing things that add nothing to you,
things that belittle you,
that make you feel sad.
Always, whenever possible,
- and it won't happen every day, but will on many days -
go to bed with the feeling: "If I were to die today, I would die happy,"
because we have no guarantees.
Human beings are the only animals who are aware that they'll die one day,
and despite knowing it, we still don't enjoy ourselves.
I mean, how rational is it to know we are going to die
and still waste our time on things that don't matter,
still keep doing bad things?
The advice I'd like to give you is:
don't be afraid of ventures, don't be afraid of suffering,
of daring, making mistakes, learning, falling and getting up.
Don't be afraid of cancer. Don't be afraid of death.
Be afraid of not having lived.
Thank you.
(Applause)