Statistics from the International Agency for Research on Cancer attached to the World Health Organization suggest that, in 2020, China had 4.57 million new cases and 3 million cancer deaths, with an incidence rate indicating that one in five people is likely to develop cancer before the age of 75.
In China, having a cancer patient at home can be a major challenge, emotionally and financially, for the whole family.
Taking care of a cancer patient usually requires an intense amount of time and physical output to provide company and care, as well as constant family decision-making to balance treatment and finances. It also involves long-term fear and frustration, and stress in comforting the patient while maintaining life and work, not to mention interpersonal relationships that can often make things even more complicated.
These families are frequently struggling with the huge disparity in medical resources between big cities and their hometown, and it's common to see them rush into crowded hospitals desperately seeking a registration number, an earlier operation or a better sickbed.
Liu Xingyi, born in 1992, has accompanied several of her family members and friends battling cancer over the past eight years. From being all at sea upon hearing that her mother had ovarian cancer in 2014, to shouldering the responsibility of getting her grandfather's gastric cancer treated smoothly last year, she has become an "expert".
