Reel thriller to real horror

“Tell me when this scene is over, okay!” my friend would whisper while watching thrillers like Anaconda or horror flicks like Anabelle. I’d urge her not to close her eyes and impatiently say, “It’s just a movie for God’s sake!” Her ego wouldn’t let her admit that this intimidating figure is actually frightened of ghosts and ghostly creatures. “Why can’t we just watch ‘feel good’ movies?” she’d say, rolling her eyes. And I’d conveniently ignore her.

Cut to present.

I’d read that side effects of chemotherapy could result in diarrhea or constipation. In my friend’s case, it was the latter. She was generally prone to suffering from difficult bowel movement. Tilotama was adept at spotting one’s weakness and exploiting the opportunity.

“It’s painful and it’s irritating,” my friend said; her frown exaggerating the frustration. Swollen lumps in her rectum made it difficult for her to sit or walk. Could it be hemorrhoids? Her sister ordered tissues from the US, made specifically to tackle hemorrhoids. Her eyes welled up as she swallowed the pain while getting up from the chair after lunch. My mind raced helter skelter to figure out a way to ease this suffering.

Another round of MRI was imminent. “How long will I have to lie down? Tilotama wouldn’t let my sacrum remain in peace baby,” my friend expressed her worry. From pillows to painkillers - how much can we plan, when Tilotama was ten times smarter than JK Rowling’s Voldemort? It wasn’t just hemorrhoids. My friend was literally biting back the angry comments of Tilotama’s friend - Fistula.

“She has developed this infection - Fistula. We should be careful to keep that in control. I do not want to pause her chemo to accommodate a surgery for the Fistula,” the doctor said. The only way to tame this infection is Sitz Bath. And if that doesn’t suffice, just pop a strong  painkiller. For the uninitiated, sitz bath refers to soaking the affected area in a tub full of warm water.

“See baby, I’m almost doing a full squat,” she’d say. A rare quality about her is that she finds cheer even in chagrin. I feigned a Jim Carrey laugh, while I felt a knife carving out my insides. 

One whole week of full squats before we realized online stores have a host of products to make our lives easy. Sitz bath tubs in several colours and sizes to suit your lavatory and it’s like you are sitting on a chair. The region that is exposed to the warm water in the sitz tub could turn sore. And it did.

“How many times did I do my sitz bath? 4 or 5?” my friend wondered, while writing it down in her diary. Her target was 5 every day. The one who handled numbers while designing presentations for Apple and Google, was here thinking numbers to keep her Fistula pain at bay.

My friend and I had a name for Tilotama’s partner too. “Despite this sitz bath, Godzilla is very angry today,” she’d say. And when I spotted her awake in the middle of the night, “Shhhhh! Godzilla is fast asleep,” she’d say, wondering whether to turn to the side or not. 

I usually would sleep on my stomach with one leg stretched and the other propped up like I’m ready to do a ‘Kung Fu’. I started feeling guilty because I’d see her sleeping straight with her legs folded like a frog and her midriff lifted gently with a pillow so that Godzilla remained undisturbed.

Tilotama and Godzilla joined hands to make her life a real horror.