BC Cancer Agency

Persian American Cancer Institution song by several Iranian singers and artists

It has been over 6 months that my grandmother has been diagnosed with cancer. Hearing the news was like a nightmare. You never want to accept that cancer, with all its prevalence, can happen to you or one of your love ones. We are grateful that it has not metastasized and her doctor assured us that there was no reason for us to be worried. However, she still has to go through 5 dreadful cycles of chemotherapy to make sure that it doesn't relapse.

It was a coincident that I ended up doing some work at BC Cancer Agency Library for my program. This place is the Canadian source of information related to cancer. It is the library mandate to support the information needs of oncologists, surgeons, researchers, and the staff at the BC Cancer Agency. However, the previous head librarian, the late David Nobel, initiated informational services for patients as well. I was amazed by the number of in-person and email questions the library receives daily from cancer patients or their relatives across the province and Canada. Interestingly, there are so many patients who do not speak English well. Communicating with someone who only speaks Chinese is not easy. You have to make sure that the message is clear and eliminate any possible misunderstandings when it comes to information related to health. Even the Canadian Cancer Society provides information in different languages and thankfully Farsi is one of them. I hope no one finds the need to look at these websites but it is always good to know about their existence and pass the information along.

It is crucial to get help from somewhere, from someone, to get through cancer. It is truly a battle. Although in Iran you might not get the same support from the government but we are lucky enough to have stronger family structure and get that love and support from our family and close relatives. So this post is for my grandma in hope that she stays as strong as ever.