Grit, cancer and a voice that inspires me in so many ways
“You may not have luck on your side, but you can still have grit in your corner.”
— John Dabell
Social media certainly has a lot to answer for, but there are still many elements that I appreciate. One of them is discovering voices of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and/or who have something extraordinary to say.
John Dabell is an Englishman whose posts I discovered on Threads, the social media feed that Meta set up to compete with Twitter/X. It certainly hasn’t supplanted that, but I do find myself stumbling upon enjoyable things.
To be truthful, I feel awkward saying I “enjoy” Dabell’s posts, because of a grim reality that underscores everything he posts.
He has incurable cancer, and it’s obvious in his posts (including ones just this week) that his health is very concerning. Some recent posts outlined how he wound up several weeks ago in the ICU, acquired pneumonia and had to put a pause on the immunotherapy that has been keeping alive.
What I find remarkable is Dabell’s indomitable spirit. His Threads bio describes him as an “incurable optimist living with incurable cancer.”
It adds: “The difference between a worrier and a warrior is just a couple of vowels.”
The father of a young daughter, John Dabell was diagnosed in 2009 with head and throat cancer. He is still alive, still fighting cancer, still refusing to declare defeat.
The images of him as a young father stand in contrast to what cancer has done to his body.
I follow him because his spirit and drive remain unbeaten by cancer. “Despite now having a heart condition as a result of major surgery, optimism is running the operation,” he wrote last week. “The odds might be still stacked against me but I remain stubbornly available for tomorrow.”
I love his posts. I hope we get to see many, many more for quite a long time to come.