Inspired by Bia - How Her Fight Against Cancer Changed My Life
In a time when we talk about going to Mars and having AGI, cancer is still taking lives every day.
This cause could not have been a personal one, but it is.
As a young kid from a small town in Portugal, people who die from cancer are on TV and I don't know them personally. My friends & family are “protected” by an imaginary shield that I created in my head.
Until they aren’t.
Let me go back down memory lane and talk about Beatriz.
Bia was in my class in high school.
We started talking here and there.
Before I knew it, she was my best friend.
We would talk for hours about everything and nothing - always laughing.
We would sit next to each other and professors would have a hard time with us because we liked to chit chat.
So we created a new communication medium to not get caught.
We would rip the side of those pages and write in very small font notes to each other.
We would go through multiple of these in each class.
It was our thing.
A few months later, we had a sports class and she felt weak from her wrist.
She didn't really like sports. So I remember making fun of her for trying to find an excuse to skip sports class.
That would be the last time I made fun of that.
She went to the hospital the day after, and to another one soon for a second opinion.
She had cancer. On her back.
Her floor was pulled from under her.
She was 16 and while kids her age were worrying about boys and school grades, she had to fight for her life.
At fucking 16.
The crazy part is that the attitude she had with others was the same.
She would not display any weakness throughout none of it.
She was so strong. At 16.
One day I visited her and she had no hair because of chemotherapy.
She was still the same beautiful and happy girl that I loved.
Underneath it all, I don't know where she got the strength to go through it.
The school adapted the classes to be livestream so that she could attend from home.
Not only she wasn't gonna lose this battle but she didn't want to lose 1 year of school either.
She was incredibly smart for her age. So losing a year wasn't an option for her.
At the graduation she wrote me a message. She didn't have strength in her hand to write so she used her wrist to be able to write it in an iPad.
The translation doesn’t make it justice, but it reads as:
Didier
It was in the middle of laughter, in the middle of playfulness.
It was in the middle of tantrums and misunderstandings.
It was in the middle of sheets of paper fallen on the floor and of pieces of paper so efficiently utilized.
It was like this that our friendship grew!
Beatriz ❤️
Saturday morning I got a call. A common friend let me know that she passed away unexpectedly.
I was still in bed. I cried for hours. I didn't want to wake up. Maybe some part of me never did.
She had her entire life ahead of her.
She was kind, curious and loving. She would have accomplished so much.
Yet she was gone.
No one deserves to lose their best friend at 17. Not like that. It wasn't fair.
But that's cancer for you.
Cancer doesn't care.
It never did.
From that moment onwards I changed my attitude towards life.
I stopped doing things for the sake of doing them and always put 120%.
I went from spending most of my time as a gamer and doing just enough to have good grades in high school to being the best student of my year in my BSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering, moving to London to have a distinction at Imperial College London (top 2 uni in the world) and now moving to NYC to increase chances of success for my startup.
I have a tattoo that says “All her would-haves are our opportunities" (which is from Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam) to remind me that every day I have opportunities that she didn't get to experience.
But I hope that in some way, shape or form, she is.
And that I make her proud.
Stories like this are not as uncommon as you may think they are.
It took me over 10 years to talk about how cancer took my best friend’s life away.
Imagine the number of people who never write about how it impacted their lives.
If anything, my objective with this post is to highlight that cancer is real.
In a time when we talk about going to Mars and having AGI, cancer is still taking lives every day...
Haymakers for Hope is an organization dedicated to raising funds for cancer research and care. They organize unique events that combine athleticism with philanthropy, making a significant impact in the fight against cancer.
On March 16, 2025, I will be running the NYC Half Marathon as part of the Haymakers for Hope team.
Join me in this fight against cancer, for Bia and for all those whose lives have been touched by this disease.
I've created a fundraising page where you can support this cause.
Every donation matters. ❤️