‘Life Feels More Like A Slow Death’: Ingrid Sammut Opens Up On Cancer Battle
Cancer patient and former reality TV star Ingrid Sammut has opened up about the brutal daily realities of living with cancer.
Ingrid opened up following the death of her friend Kimberly Zammit, who was also diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
“They say I should feel lucky I didn’t die, that I should stay positive, live for my daughter, and be grateful I’m still here, and I’m still breathing, and my heart still pumping,” she said.
“But no one talks about what ‘survival’ really looks like.”
“I can’t dance anymore. I can’t run, I can’t swim. I can’t train my body, can’t even walk like I used to. Now I’m just weight-bearing. I’m not truly walking.”
“I drag myself forward with my hips, because my leg doesn’t obey me. I have to learn how to walk again… to manage a few steps, with difficulty and pain.”
“They cut into me from the inside. They cut the very nerve that connects my body to my soul.”
She said she has completely lost her independence, along with hair, her nails, her vision, and her sensuality, that she was put into induced menopause
“I don’t feel like a woman anymore… not the one I was. I’m confined to a bed in one room, because walking to the kitchen is an ordeal.”
“Eating is one of the few things I can do, and with it and barely any physical activity comes the weight, the shame, and the distance from who I once was.”
“This isn’t living. It’s enduring. And yet everyone tells me to ‘be positive’ and ‘stay strong’. Much easier said than done.”
“And who said I didn’t die? Because in so many ways, I did.”
“Life is unfair. And I don’t say that lightly. I feel it in my bones, in my scars, in every breath I wish I didn’t have to take.”
“I lived clean. I lived healthy. No alcohol, no drugs, no junk food, no cigarettes, no unnecessary medicine, no steroids.”
“I respected my body. I loved life. I loved people. I helped others. I studied, I built a career, a profession, and multiple businesses, on my own, against all odds.”
“I invested in the future with the hope to retire early and enjoy quality time with my family. I always had the future in mind, yet too busy to cherish the present moments. I was raising a child with everything I had. I took nothing for granted. And yet here I am… broken.”
“While others trashed their bodies, I preserved mine. While others wandered, I stayed grounded. And still, cancer came for me. It wasn’t inherited. It wasn’t invited. It was a violent thief in the night.”
She said that people’s regular complaints about the heat, traffic, work, their boss and colleagues or putting on a little weight all sound trivial to her there days.
“I find myself nodding, pretending to understand. But how could I truly understand, when my entire world was torn apart, shattered completely, so unfairly, for no reason I can grasp.”
“When life feels more like a slow death… a cruel death sentence handed down to someone innocent, condemned for a crime they never committed.”
“Like a lion captured and torn from the wild, stripped of freedom, forced to endure the endless torment of a cage, trapped in a circus show for others’ amusement.”
“Life is so unfair. It’s cruel. It hands out pain with no reason. It silences the voices of the good, the kind, the young, the innocent. It lets mothers die. Not just once, but in pieces. Sometimes all at once. Sometimes like me… little by little.”
“It lets our daughters cry into empty spaces, waiting for the mothers we used to be. And it leaves us watching, helpless, as time keeps moving without us.
“I’m not asking for a perfect life. I never was. But I had a good one. I had purpose. I had rhythm. I had independence. I had hope. And now… I have four walls. Pain. Silence. And the ghost of a life that once belonged to me.”
“They say ‘everything happens for a reason’. No. Some things happen for no reason. Some things are just senseless.”
“They say God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. Why should anyone have to be this strong?”
“And what did I ever do to be chosen for battle in the first place?”
“Life is unfair. And if you’ve never been brought to your knees by it, you may never truly understand the kind of grief that has no grave.”
“Yes, in moments of severe pain and discomfort I try to pass on inspiration. But sometimes… I am the one who needs it.”
“And in the dark hours that stretch endlessly, there is no fix, no promise, no real comfort.”
“The words people say to console me sound like empty clichés, like they’re trying to talk me out of my pain rather than sit with me in it… sometimes it even feels I’m being taken for a ride.”
“All I want is my life back. And I can’t help but ask: Why me? Why did this happen when I never smoked, drank, did drugs, ate junk food, or took unnecessary meds? No family history. No vices. Just punishment. What did I do so wrong?”
Ingrid then paid tribute to the late Kimberly.
“Another young mother has died. The one who sat right next to my hospital room. We used to exchange encouragement, holding each other up with words, with hope.”
“We talked about going home to our daughters. We dreamed of freedom, of normal. But sarcoma took you. Just like that.”
“The third life it’s taken since I’ve been in this ward. Three young lives taken by Sarcoma, which I also shared. It took you completely. It took my life too… just not my breath. It left me dead and breathing.”
“I sent you a message, but there was no reply. I wondered where you were. I asked for you but wasn’t given an answer.”
“Now I know. You are the angel. I am the ghost. And the question won’t stop echoing: Why you? Why not me?”
“Why was I holding hands with death… and it didn’t choose me? Maybe I wish it had.”
“Because this… this pain, this living death, is a different kind of sentence. One I can’t escape. One I didn’t deserve. And today, I have no inspiration to give.”
“No light to shine. No strength to pretend. Maybe God has forgotten us. Or maybe He’s just silent. To my friend Kimberly Zammit : your pain is over.”
“Your war is done. May you rest in peace. And may God bless your beautiful soul. You are now an angel watching over us from heaven.”
“As for me… I’m still here, watching life go by. But sometimes I wish I wasn’t….”