Ramblings of a person surviving cancer
There is this strange thought that clouds my mind, my vision and my thoughts. But it must be the chemo talking, or maybe not.
The chemo works both ways on me. The good and the bad way. Good: it keeps me alive, Bad: I can’t stand the pain post it.
It makes me throw up; yes, throw up all that I have ingested. The body breaks down, I wobble through cold white corridors looking for a space to crouch, to cry, to billow and to punch the wall.
I never question; why me? I always question; why them. The children at the pediatric wards. They don’t deserve it. I am grounded because of the children. I don’t know why.
I am ranting. I might want to stop. I don’t want to stop.
But writing eases my pain out.
It eases my trouble out. It brings back clarity that all this is for a chance to live.
A chance to survive.
There is something ethereal about the diversity in a cancer ward. There is something calming, chaotic, numbing, painful and rhetorical all at the same time.
Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it burns, but most of the time it whizzes past like a cold wintery/icy breeze.
That piercing gaze from the children in the room, oh yes, I choose to get chemo in the children’s ward because of inspiration value around. But, that is something to discuss later.
The white walls at the hospital are symbolic, almost cathartic, it engulfs the pain and makes you draw images you want to. An illusion of freedom. A lie the doctors tell you. A loot within. A window to the morbidity of death.
Gazes so strong it pierces the heart. One can’t stop to wonder if the nurses don’t get affected. Oh, but they are taught to be unaffected.
Life throws you curveballs, said the mother. I never believed her ever, but now I reconsider. That one night when I was laid on the stretcher and being wheeled into the ICU with the nurse yelling “Code Red”. Knowing you are going to die, not going to make it and the thrill of the expected surrealism has taught me that life is indeed a field of curveballs aimed at your face. I say face because I value my face highly. I’d have insured it had I been a celebrity. But, that again is a far cry.
Living with cancer, grinned a little boy dressed up as a soldier at the pediatric ward. I called him Soldier boy, he beamed. I corrected him and told him he was a fighter and not just living with cancer. He was a fighter, literally.
“You are so strong!” exclaimed a family friend on the phone. I wanted to yell back that I am not strong, and saying that puts a lot of pressure on me. The thing about cancer is, it doesn’t quite give you an option, neither does it give you that space to display your valour. However, the other thing about cancer is, if you survive it, you get to see and do things in the world which you wouldn’t have if you hadn’t survived.
Fight- on, fight- all.
If you are one of us, keep fighting the good fight. We’ve got this, we will win this, we will overcome this and the sun will shine brighter tomorrow.
Like I learnt during my 10 days Vipassana session that nothing is permanent, neither this pain nor the life we live and this too shall pass. So, please know you aren’t alone.