Unconditional Love

Here are some excerpts from Lance Armstrong’s phenomenal book “Its not about the Bike. My Journey Back to Life.” Lance Armstrong, no doubt, is an inspiration but I would like to give kudos to one more person in his life other than his mother. It’s his wife - Kristin Richard who was truly a stud.

 

Read on..

“Love and Cancer were strange companions, but in my case they came along at the same time. It was hardly the ideal situation in which to meet my future wife-but that’s exactly what happened. Why do two people get married? For a future together, naturally. The question was whether or not I had one.”

Lance met his future wife at a time when he didn’t have cancer (his cancer was cured by chemo & treatment), but he didn’t not have it either. He was in a state wherein cancer could hit him back again and he was still uncertain about his own life. He was in extreme anxiety and could barely lead a normal life. He couldn’t even turn to biking, which was once his passion and purpose of life.

“I felt safe with her. She liked me bald and sick with no eyebrow, and the insecurities I might have had about my hair, my eyes, my scars, my body, didn’t seem to matter.”

Once you finish your treatment, doctors say, “You are cured, go off and live.” But what about the emotional ramifications of trying to return to the world after being in a battle for your existence. His girl friend stood by him in this most difficult time and also decided to marry him.

Armstrong married Kristin Richard, a public relations executive he met through his cancer foundation, in 1998. The couple had a son, Luke, in October 1999, using sperm frozen before Armstrong began chemotherapy (since the treatment was going to render Lance infertile and he perhaps would not be in a position to have his own children in future).

 

Tough times – uncertainty between life and death, no flowery future promises & dreams, a husband who had lost confidence in himself and was struggling hard to come back to live a normal life. This is what Kristin embraced completely when she married Lance. Truly heart touching and exemplary love that was absolutely unconditional. Stud !  Kudos to her !

Attitudinally Incompatible – Is that you or the society?

Born and brought up in a well-to-do and not so conservative family with some great friends around all the time, I hardly imagined that vitiligo could ever act in my life at any point of time in any way. My confidence, social and professional life not even a bit was touched on by this. I loved myself and my life and that is even today. I never associated myself with any vitiligo groups or awareness platforms, and infact always distanced myself from people sharing their experiences and extending their sympathies.
 

However, I stumbled upon some startling thought processes amongst us with regards to Vitiligo. Most shockingly it was the young, so called broad-minded, “cool”, educated and the well placed generation that actually made me retract and think where are we really standing today. It was only after  this that I decided to be more vocal about it.

Discrimination against vitiligo affected people unfortunately does exist as a bitter truth, but predominantly in the less privileged section of the society. But what was even more shocking is those who are well-aware, well-educated are actually the ones ducking from it.  That could either be in the form of denial to acceptance of the way they are, shying from it, ignoring it under the pretext of busy life and being less vocal about vitiligo.

Just putting down my observations here, but I find that boys are more prone to inferiority complex than girls. They find it more difficult than girls to come to terms with reality. They shy off from what the situation demands.  

Well, this is the case with those affected with vitiligo. I see that they are struggling for self-acceptance. What about the rest of the society that thinks it has come a long way and shed behind days of blind beliefs and believes that today’s society is with modern views. Well, then you need an introspection ! Because the truth is you don’t bestow the status of a normal person to a vitiligo affected person till date. I have seen several examples supporting this.  

I recently attended a vitiligo awareness event wherein a doctor was invited to address the gathering. She confessed that inspite of being a doctor who knows its just an aesthetic skin disorder with no health implications, and although she thought she was open minded, she realized that day that she wasn’t. She would not have probably allowed her son to marry a vitligo affected girl till the day she attended that event. The event served as an eye-opener to her and that she needs to reset her thoughts towards vitiligo.

My dear friends, I urge one and all to break this mindset. I want you to think are you really open-minded? Do you really deserve to be called a modern day society? Introspect...