The Fight

With well-wishers pouring their concerns in, I felt more ill than I really was. Their thoughtful comments defied by the lack of hope in their eyes, left me feeling miserable. Before I had even decided to put up a fight, everybody had already given up. What is tha they say about a batlle being lost for the lack of a will to win?

I was fighting an unknown enemy. Nobody could have claimed either experience or expertise to guide me in my battle to stay alive. All my doctor said was, "to fight cancer you really really have to want to stay alive. You have to want to win and want it so bad, that you make a friend of your foe. Do you want to live?"

I said no. I said I did not want to live tethered to the bed with unseen bonds. I did not want to live a life of dependency. I did not want to depend on people, or science or medicine. I did not want to wake up every morning, grateful that I am alive, but depressed at the existence I call my life. No I really did not want to win this war. I wanted to give in and put an end to it. The sooner the better.

He said his biggest enemy was me. He said he would not give up on me. He said he so badly wanted me to live a normal life again, that he would make me want it too. He would make me want to live. And together we had no choice, but to win.

My doctor. He made me come alive.

The Nightmare

One morning when I woke up, I woke up realizing that I didn’t want to be awake.

The minute I opened my eyes and I sat up on the bed, my head started reeling. I could hear sounds, but they didn’t seem to make much sense. I planted my feet on the ground. The cold floor against the heated soles of my feet bought me back to reality.

But only for a moment.

There began that gurgling feeling in the pit of my stomach. My back arched in excruciating pain and I winced my eyes in a vain attempt to block the pain out. My head was throbbing and tears made wet paths down my cheek.

I rushed to the bathroom, where promptly I threw up whatever little I had managed to eat the earlier night. After sipping water to calm my empty and burning stomach, I sat on the edge of the bed closest to the door.

The convulsions during vomiting had triggered of another set of aches and my head felt like it would tear of at my neck. I shivered slightly from the non-existent breeze and I knew I had to keep myself warm. I just couldn’t find the energy to grab myself a warm shawl. So I just sat there trying to calm my overwrought nerves.

That was not to be..

For the remainder of the day, the only time I left the bed, was to rush to the bathroom to throw up, and back from there. As the night crept along the sky, my body was washed with fatigue and the only coherent thought my aching head could conjure was that of sleep. My stomach was shooting pain arrows into my system and I was afraid I would collapse.

But I did not shut my eyes. I was so scared that if I closed my eyes this time, I would never wake up again

The Journey Onwards

I dont know why hospitals cannot be more cheerful. It is as if their primary function is to make you 'feel' like a patient. Even if you are not apprehensive, the pale, spotless walls and edge of metal will fill you with dread and gloom.

In the distance I could hear faint murmurs. I was sepearted from those human decibels by thick walls and a glass door. All around me were technological wonders. Machines which blipped and blopped to tell the doctors whether you would live or not. Ironical isnt it? That something so inhuman as a machine, actually saves lives? I sat there motionless. My legs stretched on teh gynaecolical table.

Any minute now, I would have ten guys [ok I exaggerated, five males], albeit very qualified doctors, prying and prodding my very private parts. Yet, it by no means could be treated as violation, because I consented to let them do so. It was the only way out, I was told. I could either stick to my rather traditional beliefs of womanhood or choose to ease out the pain. I chose to ease the pain.

Did the pain really ease?

Not really. But I was told they finally figured out what was causing the pain. Voila! Could we now fix it? I might look all grown up, but you know deep within I am just a child. I might keep a calm face and pretend to understand those big words you hurl across at each other, occassionally at me, but inside, what I do not understand makes me quiver. The more I do not understand, the more I panic.

Am I too small to want to run home and be engulfed in the arms of my mommy? I so wish, like the olden days she could simply hug me and say 'its going to be ok' and I would deep down somehow know she was right...

The Beginning

Its been a really long time. I think I am tired of fighting a lone battle. I have been alone not because nobody wanted to be by my side, but because I did not want to cause anybody more grief than I already must have. But then yes, admittedly, I am tired of fighting a lone battle.

What began as stomach crams developed so rapidly into an ovarian cancer, that I didnt quite get the time to think. But I made up my mind to brave it out alone. Little did I realise then, the bliss of someone holding your hand. The reassuring touch of someone who really cares, is often more effective than the best medicines.

I remember days when I was sitting at my desk in office and I would suddenly get this horrid pain in my stomach. Quite often I would stop mid-sentence and clench my teeth, willing the pain to go away. It felt as if a thousand bees were stinging my stomach from the inside and I couldnt even shoo them away. For three days I pushed visiting the gyn in the hope that the pains would pass away.

When they only intensified I did go to her for a 'friendly' visit.

I was sitting in the cold waiting room of a diagnostic clinic waiting for the doctor to give her verdict on reviewing my pathological results. You know what they say about women right? They have a gut feeling, a premonition about things. I had one of those, I just knew something was wrong.

"Have you heard of a laparoscopy?" she asked me.

I had heard of it, but I couldnt seem to recollect what it was. She then told me that she wanted to get a tissue sample by a process called colonoscopy and have it tested for cancer. My ultrasound did show a development of a tumor what left to be seen was whether the tumor was benign or malignant.

I dont know what was the first thought to cross my mind, but I do know one thought that zinged through my brain was - this is not happening to me....