It was about 4:30
a.m. in the morning and I hadn’t rested even for a minute through the night.
Lack of sleep however was no excuse to the long list of work that waits for me
every day both at office and home. Although the attention to my two little kids
was unavoidable, to continue with my job was now a distant reality for me.
And it all happened
because of that one phone call…
I was a young
woman with two young boys aged 5 and 7. A vegetarian, and almost insanely
weight conscious, I believe I had a relatively healthier lifestyle as compared
to women of this generation, many of whom I knew took to smoking and drinking
right after school. I worked as a systems analyst in a multinational technology
company and my husband Swastik was a Director in a consulting firm. Needless to
say, we could afford the best school in the neighborhood for our kids Zeeshan
and Rayhan. The point that I am trying to make is that we were financially
quite comfortable. My husband, a smart man, seldom failed to display his well
practiced financial wisdom (leveraging his financial consulting experience at
work), and had planned for each expected fund outflow in advance such as
travels, children’s education and marriage, estate investments, retirement and
almost everything. So I never had to worry as far as money matters were
concerned.
I had no family
history of Cancer, and I was almost certain to death that I was never going to
die of Cancer. We had just returned from a week long family holiday to Tahiti
islands, the largest island of French Polynesia in the southern Pacific Ocean.
We had all gone scuba diving, snorkeling and beach rafting. The kids had a
marvelous time at the beach and the resort. After a long time and a full year
of hard work, Swastik and I had found some really romantic moments together
undisturbed by the con-calls and e-mails. The last night at Tahiti was like
reliving the honeymoon, as magical as the teenage puppy love, coupled with a
night of an absolute mature and daring lovemaking. After we had two great
sessions, Swastik touched me again, desiring for a third. Only this time, he
thought he felt a lump below my right breast. He brought my hand over it to
make me feel it myself. Painless and definitive – I suddenly remembered faintly
the words of my gynecologist at the time Rayhan was born; that it’s a lump that
usually doesn’t hurt and is what you should be looking for. The flight back
next day was unusually disturbed and uncomfortable in the awareness of the new
suspicion. Hence, as soon as we arrived at the Chhatrapati Shivaji
International Airport in the afternoon, I immediately went to the doctor for a
mammography.
I hated the
hospital environment for the anxiety issues it induced. It was the place where
many times in the past I had confronted the unhappy reality of death and dying.
As a matter of fact, I had never seen a severely ill patient ever come alive
out of the hospital – as if it’s almost certain that if I’m severely ill and in
the hospital, I would most definitely die. That very moment was when I felt the
fear of dying, and realized that I was surprisingly more scared of dying than I
thought I was. May be it was not for myself, but for my kids and my husband. In
the latter part of the 33 years of my life, I had seen the death of family
members, friends, and friends of friends, acquaintances, colleagues – of
natural causes, diseases, murders, suicides, everything. None of it could be
compared with what I felt at that moment. It was me this time. And believe me
when I say this, it is difficult to imagine one’s own death.
The biopsy took a
long time, as the pathologist needed to be convinced of the situation before
issuing a definitive diagnosis to what could have been a prospective cancer
patient.
There were
unexpectedly too many people in the oncology unit of this hospital, mostly
older men and women, and while Swastik was away at the hospital canteen to
arrange a quick bite, I took time to observe their faces. Most of them looked
well acquainted with the department and the doctors, had thick files in their
hands and seemed at ease. They remarkably looked ‘Okay’ with their
circumstances. “They might have older kids and have lived their share of
healthy lives”, I thought to myself. “I am only 33 with 2 young kids and a
bright career ahead! It cannot happen to me.”
And then I got the
report with the devastating news. My world came crashing down. It was like a
nightmare, and I hoped that I would open my eyes in the next second, and
everything would be normal. I had always thought cancer happened to older
people. It was like watching a movie, the only difference being this time that
it wasn’t a movie, it was me.
And from that
moment on was when the real issues of life started dramatizing themselves right
in front of my eyes. All the savings my husband had planned for us, now
appeared insufficient. Because, guess what, we hadn’t planned for a cancer at
33! Treatment was necessary, as it was the only option. Life had suddenly
become grueling for Swastik who now found himself solely responsible to fund my
hospital expenses, the already running EMIs, the apartment rent, his expenses,
and those of the kids. I felt so helpless and thought my immediate death would
have been better for him. He wouldn’t have to do all this alone, and at the
same time see me suffer. It was as if this malignant situation of mine was
trickier than a sudden and benign death. And when I told him how I thought, he
hugged me tight.
The clock starts
ticking in a countdown fashion, and everything happens quickly when you’re told
that you’re diagnosed with cancer. You become conscious of the fact that
there’s so little time left for you and your family to be with you in this
world. The kids had to know that their mamma wasn’t well but they could hardly
understand. I hoped that I’d get better after the treatment soon and be back to
the role of a caring mother, though there was no such guarantee. Swastik was my
biggest support in these times to keep the children’s life as normal as
possible.
The cancer was at
its second stage. The doctor assured that about 50 percent of the patients
survive if detected in the first 2 stages. I was referred to the best cancer
hospital in Bombay and the treatment started immediately. Life changed
strangely with doctors who were now scheduling surgeries, chemo sessions,
admitting me for days at stretch for radiations. The medicines were so
expensive that our pockets bled. The property at the Pali Hill had to be
mortgaged to arrange for the hospital payments. Our parents and my brother
occasionally flew down from Delhi to assist Swastik in attending to me during
my surgeries and chemo sessions, but ultimately that slowed down to the extent
that almost every week Swastik had to take time off his office to attend to me.
I lost my hair and had started looking older. Swastik got me a wig to wear so
the kids won’t get startled when they come to meet me.
On the other side,
my older one had figured something wrong in the situation and was failing in
his grades in the school. In the meantime my mother had developed a knee issue
and was advised bed rest for six weeks. Swastik missed his promotion for the
first time and had been rated as an underperformer for the year. My sabbatical
had been quite long as per my company’s standards and some people at the top
decided to terminate my services after contributing meagerly to the hospital
expenses in lieu of the insurance premium bit of the CTC that they paid to the
insurance company for me. Life had always been so beautiful for us, but as they
say like the tides of the sea, the day and the night, no one told us that life
will always be a bed of roses. But sometimes, even when you lose all hope,
people who love you don’t let you give up. I give all the credit of my survival
today to my husband Swastik and pray that we all be supported by our families
in the times of test.
My treatment
continued for three long years in hospital. Zeeshan is ten now and has become a
very introvert and reclusive child. Rayhan is okay though he has very few
friends. I only have to take the medicines now that are usually prescribed for
a longer period to avoid recurrence of the cancer, but again, there is no such
guarantee. What has changed now for a not-so-young-and-vibrant-woman-anymore
like me is the way I appreciate life and the value of being part of a
supportive family. Nevertheless, I am proud of myself too that I could instill
the inspiration that I received from my loved ones, and kept myself high on the
spirit even when the time turned against me – in a countdown fashion. With this
new perspective, at 37 I now walk free from cancer, but at the same time much
more conscious to the short lived and uncertain nature of the life we are
living every day, and the inescapable death.
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