Just when you think you can't take one more step, you find you have taken another three.
Activist refuses to let illness stop
her walking for a good cause
Siyamtanda
Capacapas@timesmedia.co.za
HUMAN
rights activist, Dianne Lang, refuses to let illness hold her
back and will join thousands of Bay residents walking for a good cause
tomorrow.
The
59-year old Engcobo-born Lang has been living with hypo gamma
globulin anaemia – a rare type of cancer – for five years and had a bilateral
mastectomy on July 22.
After
being bed-ridden for months, she will walk in the Algoa FM Big Walk tomorrow.
Lang
is kept alive by the cell transplants she receives every second week, donated
by people through their blood products. This gives her a temporary immune
system for two weeks.
“It
is either I am being completely stupid or I am being brave enough to show
people that if you want to do something badly enough you can do it, there is no
excuse,” she said.
Lang
said her physicians had advised her against participating in the walk.
“They
say I am taking my life into my own hands. I may not walk far because I have
exertion asthma from the hypo globulin anaemia and peripheral neuropathy, which
means the nerves to my legs and feet are dead. But I want to go as far as I
can.”
While
other walkers will walk in pink, Lang will tackle the 5km walk in
orange because the ribbons for leukaemia are orange.
“I
will be walking for rare diseases South Africa. I am doing it so people can see
that there is more to cancer than breasts, there are other rare diseases, and
rare diseases are kept outside of the loop,” Lang said.
One
of the major challenges is the isolation that comes with rare diseases, she
said.
“When
you have a disease like this one, you grieve for who you once were, you get to
a point where you have to redefine your life and say how can I live my life
with meaning within the limitations that I have.
“If
I cannot inspire another human being and make them examine their life, then my
life becomes meaningless. If you look at my physical condition I know it is a
crazy thing to do, but I want to die with my boots on.” (Written by Siyamtanda Capacapas)
It
was not a clever move – my walk/roll in the wheelchair put me into hospital the
following day and I only came out this afternoon. BUT I DID IT!!! The ferociousness of the human spirit is
unparalleled anywhere else in the world and can overcome far more than you think it can. Just when you think you can't take one more step, you find you have taken another three.
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