Taiwanese woman learns to dance on one leg, encourages other cancer survivors

From Taiwan News:

What can a person handicapped by cancer do? Lin Mu-qing often gets asked this question when she visits cancer wards at hospitals to comfort patients suffering from the disease.

"You can do whatever a healthy person can do, " she would patiently tell the person asking the question.

These are not empty words of encouragement. Lin means what she says and through her own life, has proven her belief to be true.

The 32-year-old Taipei native has become a motivator for thousands of cancer sufferers in Taiwan since the Formosa Cancer Foundation, moved by her strong sense of optimism and ability to overcome difficulties, invited her to be their ambassador-of-sorts, sponsoring her to make speeches at hospitals, schools, and elsewhere.

In order to share her story with more people, the cancer foundation this year retained two directors to shoot a film featuring her triumph over diseases and handicaps.

To the encouragement of the foundation, the film created by a crew of four in four months made it to the list of five finalists out of 250 films in the category of Personal Stories at the International Cancer Film Festival organized by the International Union Against Cancer in Geneva, Switzerland in August.

Through the film, the foundation hopes Lin's story will inspire more cancer sufferers or handicapped people to not lose hope and to pursue their dreams.

Lin was an ordinary girl in her childhood who aspired to be an actress.

She looked forward to studying at an art school during her last year at a junior middle school and eagerly wanted to start a career as a performance artist after she grows up.

But her dream was dashed at the age of 16 when while playing basketball at school she bumped into another player and fell. She felt pain in her left knee which worsened in the next few days. Her father took her to see many doctors and found that she suffered from ostero sarcoma, a cancer that often strikes teenagers.

The only treatment was to amputate her left leg and even with this aggressive surgery her chances of surviving for up to five years is only 20 percent.

Her father told her the proposed surgery and dim prognosis only before she was carried into the operation room.

When she regained consciousness after the operation, Lin no longer felt the pain which had plagued her left leg.

She used her right leg to touch her left leg and found it was no longer there and all that was left was a 12.5 cm stub. She broke down in tears.

For a long period of time after being released from the hospital, Lin was gripped with the strong self-pity and anger that this terrible disease would happen to her although she had done nothing wrong.

She could no longer walk like before or run, not to mention pursue her dream of becoming an actress.

The operation interrupted her studies at school and made it difficult for her to land a job. Her father worried that his beautiful daughter might have to eke out a miserable living working as a fortune teller for the rest of her life.

Suffering from depression, Lin eventually found work as a telephone operator and led an unhappy life until one day she realized nobody was going to give her any opportunity to change her life unless she pursued the opportunity herself.

She began to pick up the hobbies she had before her surgery, such as swimming, hiking, and dancing, and learned to endure other people's stunned looks when she was doing these things. Lin even completed a course to become a television emcee and became a hostess at the Public Television station.

It was than, her active pursuit of her goals in defiance of the dim prognosis of her chance of survival came to the attention of the Formosa Cancer Foundation, which encourages her to share her experience in fighting cancer others.

Her speeches have helped her audience to appreciate what they have rather than regret what they have lost, and the most touching part of her speech is when she dances.

With the loss of her right leg, Lin leans on to her right side when she stands up; and therefore had to learn with difficulty to stand upright, as a normal people do, with only one leg.

Her dance teacher made her sit on a stool or floor and use mainly her hands and arms to express the rhythm and motif of the dance.

When she waves her arms to the music while dancing, people would feel as if there is a butterfly in her body, freeing her movements so that it seems like she has no physical handicaps.

In the film's Taipei premier on Dec. 16, the Formosa Cancer Foundation's Vice President Jacqueline Whang Peng lauded Lin's courage, which has helped her to survive 16 years after the surgery, against all odds.

Lin told her audience at the occasion that she somehow appreciates her loss of a limb, because it brought out the best in her and the most colorful part of her life began after it.

She has named her film "A Gift: 12.5 cm." and many of her audience, after watching the film, agree with her.