ABSTRACT ART - FLUID ACRYLIC
MIXED MEDIA
Created by Danielle Charpentier-Leduc
I dedicate this site to everyone afflicted with cancer and especially to smokers battling lung cancer and the stigma associated with it.
The creation of my website came with the need to help end the stigma associated with lung cancer, but most importantly to convince smokers and ex smokers diagnosed with lung cancer that they absolutely deserve the same respect, compassion, and care as anyone else afflicted with cancer. A lung cancer diagnostic is devastating to anyone, but the devastation for some smokers is simply something no one should be subjected to. For society to add isolation to this disease is, in my opinion, one of the lowest form of dehumanizing another human being.
Fortunately for me, I always believed that no one has the right to judge others no matter what the circumstances. As an ex-smoker, when I was diagnosed with lung cancer in November 2014, I never felt guilty or deserving of that disease. What happened to me is called LIFE.
I truly hope I can help some people realize how their ignorance is inflicting so much pain on others who are simply victims of a wicked addiction. If we all took a really good look at ourselves, I believe we may be less tempted to impose our judgment on others. To judge others is to judge oneself because it says more about yourself than about others.
Smoking is an addiction, which like cancer is a disease and no one should be so cruelly judged because of a disease. It’s outrageous that many smokers with lung cancer have been led to believe that they deserve it, that their cancer was self-inflicted, therefore, they feel that they do not deserve treatments. Everyone with cancer deserves and should receive treatment without discrimination.
We should not judge how others live their lives. Nobody is perfect and I believe we’re all victims of addiction in one form or another. Some are addicted to alcohol, drugs, smoking, or over-eating, while others are addicted to social media, shopping, working, gambling, just to name a few. This obsession we have of judging others has encouraged society to believe that some people, not just smokers, do not deserve to be treated for diabetes, colon cancer, liver cancer, congestive heart failure, etc., because according to some these diseases are self-inflicted. Is this what we want? That’s what we are going to get if we don’t stop judging others. In the meantime we should live and let live and show a little compassion for one another.
We should work together to help find a cure for ALL cancers. Cancer is not pink, white, grey or blue and it’s not self-inflicted.
HOPE is the only color that matters and it should be the color for ALL cancers.
A Splash of Life is my way of showing my colors of HOPE.
A Splash of Life shows my colors of HOPE.