Amongst the pains that people feel, pain from cancer is ranked number six. It is more painful than the pain from having parts chopped off, and more painful than a woman's menstrual cycle. However, there is an illustrator who suffered from the pain of cancer but remained happy. Her name is Xiongdun and it will be hard to feel sadness and sympathy while reading her story. Actually, her life-with-cancer diary may make you actually smile, because her story is like a friend’s funny diary. However, I am quite curious about how we would act if we were diagnosed with lymphoma. Would we really be able to have fun conversations with nurses or would we be worried or in despair about our imminent death? Anyone can get a bad illness. I believe that the power to overcome bad diseases comes from a positive mind. This is a book about Xiongdun who died after suffering from an illness pleasantly. While you read this book, I hope you learn how someone could live so happily even though they're so sick.

  1. I am still a woman even though I am sick~ 
  If you think Xiongdun was always lying down in the bed because of her cancer, you are wrong. Even though she was sick, she retained her title, ‘woman’. For example, during her days in the hospital, she put on make up, wore beautiful clothes and dreamed about meeting cool guys. Also, she imagined a happy future life after overcoming the painful cancer. Indeed, she did not give up being pretty by going on a diet and exercising while receiving treatments. Xiongdun once had a crush on a doctor. She said that he was so gorgeous and she screamed at herself, ‘He is so handsome!’ Like this, she never lost her identity as a woman.

  2. Xiongdun never lost her smile
  Indeed, we can be sad or become depressed when we are sick. However, Xiongdun drew on her fun hospital life. As an example, to express her pain from the needle injections, she did not draw her cartoon like, “It was so hard to get an injection”, instead she put some swear words in the sentence like, “Bl**dy H*ll OMG SO fr***ing painful this crazy thing!” On that same page, she made readers laugh again because she wrote; “I swore a lot. As if I were speaking in tongues. After getting the injection, I looked up and saw my mom’s face, white with shock”. Unfortunately, she became bald because of the cancer treatments but she wrote that she felt good about that because she could feel the wind passing her bare head and it gave her a smile. This clearly shows how positive Xiongdun was.

  3. Parent’s love that we can feel when we are sick 
  Although Xiongdun drew herself as a woman who bravely lived while under medical treatments, she was still a little child in front of her mother. Xiongdun wrote,“When sleeping in the same bed with my mother her rough but warm hand was what made me comfortable and allowed me to sleep well, even though I wasvery sick”. The touching point of this book is the tear of her father. Xiongdun’s father does not want her to know that he cried for her. Sohe pretended he was looking at the mirror but actually he was crying. This part can make readers feel a lump in their throat.

  Xiongdun was an illustrator who received a definite diagnosis at the age of 29 and she drew about her hospital life in funny ways. She was so wonderful and great because she tried to smile and laugh despite her pain. Although she passed away, her active story was handed down in a book and it is still being passed down to many people. Are you afraid of death or are you feeling despair because of being sick? Do not lose your smile, hope, or happiness, even if you get a disease. We can overcome an illness like Xiongdundid even if a horrible disease passes through your body.