AGAINST ALL ODDS When faced by adversity some of us try our best to carry on, some hide under the duvet and wait for a better day and some, like Herman Otten, are driven to be at the heart of change. Despite experiencing many personal challenges Herman is a Patient Advocate at Inspire2Live and a parliamentary lobbyist in the Netherlands. He has made remarkable strides in pushing for the best cancer care and cancer diagnosis across the Netherlands, making it fair and accessible to all. He has been involved in many initiatives with Inspire2Live, all aimed at making the lives of cancer patients better, providing advice, compassion and understanding.
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^ Photographs featured are courtesy of Herman Otten
Talking to us here at Rarity Life he explained, “My experience with cancer started a really long time ago. It started with my dad getting bladder cancer 35 years ago and then sadly dying of complications during surgery. In 2012, I was also diagnosed with bladder cancer. I was treated with BCG. That’s bovine tuberculosis. My dad, before I was born, almost died of tuberculosis. He barely survived. So it’s ironic that he died of bladder cancer while surviving TBC and I managed to survive bladder cancer due to it. It piqued my interest and I wanted to know everything about cancer. It’s not my field of interest and never was but suddenly, it became my way of life. From there it was a small step to getting more active as a patient advocate, and I started by fundraising for cancer research. The people who organised the fundraising then started up an organisation called Inspire2live which I also joined.”
