For Bui Thi Luyen, 28, cancer patients are the strongest and bravest ‘warriors’. She has vowed to devote her efforts to helping them become more beautiful.

“My life is a piece of music full of low notes,” Luyen said in a talk with VietNamNet.

As her father died when Luyen was just nine years old and her older sister has suffered from brain disease since childhood, Luyen decided that she must support her mother and sister.

She ran a beauty service facility in Hanoi, which allowed her to earn her living. 

Luyen believed that she would lead a happy life with the good business and family with one son. However, just three years after marriage, she was told that she had colon cancer and had to undergo chemotherapy.

However, Luyen, who witnessed tremendous upheavals in her childhood, was not pessimistic. Just three days after receiving the bad news, Luyen began drawing up her plan on treating the disease.

But when closing her eyes, she thought about the mother who spent dozens of years to raise her up, the good husband who takes care of her, and the nice son, and she vowed to overcome all difficulties.

Luyen began learning to accept everything in the most optimistic way. She meets and talks with other cancer patients, and realizes that many people around her are leading positive and optimistic lives while struggling against disease.

And when communicating with other patients, she realized that many have demand for beauty services.

“When you suffer a pain on your leg, you will only think about the pain. But if you have other things to do, you will forget the pain. Therefore, I decided to help patients for free,” she said.

This is a gift that encourages them to fight illness, appreciate themselves, and have more faith and love in life.

As Luyen is still undergoing chemotherapy, she can only offer her beauty services to patients on Tuesday and Wednesday at her facility in Hanoi.

After two months, Luyen has served more than 30 patients. As the list of patients registering to receive the service is long, she needs support from co-workers.

“If I can no longer do this one day, I hope there will be other people to continue this significant program,” she said.

Linh Trang