The King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH) held an educational symposium about cancer that highlighted the experiences of survivors of the disease. KFSH's Tumors and Spinal Cord Department held the event under the patronage of Princess Alia'a Bint Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz at the Jeddah Hilton, on Monday. The event was sponsored by Sanofi Aventis Company. “We are about to hold a guidance program to help cancer patients and their families get through their ordeal,” said Princess Alia'a. “We aim to shed more light more on the personal experiences in the field.” “It is very important to make periodical checks to discover the disease early,:” said Dr. Tareq Lingawi, Executive General Manager of KFSH. “Discovering the disease early enough will give us the time and the possibility to cure it, or at least to try to find ways to contain it.” The seminar focused on the fact that cancer can happen for anyone, with no regard to age or gender. Two cancer survivors participated in the seminar. One of them talked about his own experience with the disease, and the other talked about his son's ordeal. “I don't consider cancer a deadly disease,” said Ghazy Kayal, who managed to defeat cancer, laughing off the disease. “We only die when it is our time. (Death) is our destiny.” “Early discovery of the disease is the most important thing to recover and live our lives,” he said. “Also, strong faith in God is the best antidote for the patient's emotions, so I just live my life and I don't care about anything else,” Kayal added with a laugh. Kamal Abdul Gader, a journalist, talked about his suffering with his two-year-old son's affliction. “You can only imagine the agony and the suffering his mother and I are going through,” he said. “The first advice I would give to any parent in my position is to avoid all marital problems and focus on one thing only: your child's health.” “The most difficult thing in my case,” he added, “was my emotional state. I was torn apart between him and my other two children. That's why I placed my phone number at the children's tumors department in KFSH, so any parent with the same condition can call me for help with the ordeal”. He said that a parent with a child afflicted with cancer needs to have three things: “Patience, prayers, and giving money away for charity.” Besides Lingawi, speakers at the seminar were Professor Ezz Eldien Ibrahim, head of the symposium and chief of the tumors department and the research center at KFSH, Dr. Abbas Zagnoon, who talked about alternative medicine, and Shiekh Hani Refaei, who talked about religious supplication. __
