An hour passed. We sat down for dinner. She wasn’t eating at all. I looked at her admonishingly. I knew she was still thinking about her client. “What to do? Mind is a monkey,” she answered.
This monkey friend of mine hasn’t changed since.
We were set for the last session of Brentux. “Yes, after this, I’m done,” she said triumphantly. I gave her a fist bump as we sat in the car. Each visit to the hospital has been preceded by a small prayer that I chant 108 times as we drive for nearly 40 minutes from home. This time, my prayer was marked with gratitude rather than agitation.
Our oncologist was caught up. My friend and I were disappointed. Our next milestone - Fistula surgery. We thanked the doctors in his team. Keeping in mind the fear of secondary cancer, she asked them, “Can I retain the chemo port even while in Singapore?” They said no as the port will need to be flushed every month and doctors elsewhere would hesitate handling a port inserted by another doctor/hospital.
“My Fistula has been behaving well. I can’t remember the last time that it turned into Godzilla,” she beamed, while adding that she’s considering postponing her Fistula surgery until her next review.
I didn’t react. We decided to take some time to gather information and celebrate this remarkable feat.
She craved her favourite - burgers the size of barn doors. “I am going to relish a burger after nearly a year!” she raved. As she bit into that burger, her parents and I were worried about the raw veggies sandwiched between the buns. “Oh my God! You people know I don’t have cancer right?” she joked, as she set aside those veggies to assuage our fears.
Are we still treating her like a patient? I wondered. While I kept assuring myself that Tilotama is evicted from our beloved one’s system, that deadly evil kept haunting us, including her.
My friend made her first visit to my home. She sprinted excitedly from my room, to the balcony and then to the kitchen. “I can now eat all the delicacies that your mom makes. Yay!” she yelled excitedly, as my mom dished out homemade pizzas from the oven.
As she went home, she visited her aunt and her cousin. She began video calling a chosen few from the family circles.
“I am somehow not comfortable when people say ‘it’s good to see you recovering’,” my friend revealed to me. “The reason is they don’t know how tough my journey was. They must be thinking I made all that up when I narrate the ordeal. What they see now is not what I was, right?” she explained.
I remembered the time when some in my family said, “Good to see your bestie back in action. Has she started going back to work? When is she planning to go back to Singapore?”
And I wanted to tell them this isn’t a spinal issue where you rest for a few months and then get active with physiotherapy sessions.
“There are so many minor issues to deal with. This is a disease that has set a new normal and nobody seems to understand that. If I have to start working, I need to first get my vision sorted,” my friend huffed.
As a carer, I always fussed over her. We were at a coffee shop and she went berserk. Though she eats very little, she enjoys food. “Born to eat,” has always been her motto. As she bit into that quesadilla served with some raw veggies, I looked rattled. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. And I immediately felt guilty for treating her like a patient.
It’s a fine line between making her feel normal and acknowledging her struggle. “Sometimes, I fear for my future and I wonder if I can get back to being my independent self. Other times, I want to start fresh soon,” she expressed, stuck in a dilemma.
Another day, she said, “I still need to fix my joint pain. I get tired when I exert myself. I need to keep going for reviews. This is never-ending. When will I get things done here and move? It’s still such a long way off. And I feel it’s never going to happen.”
I told you, her mind is a monkey. And I often get tongue-tied, not knowing how to address or put to rest her countless thoughts.
My friend’s sister always insisted that she meet a psychologist right from Day 1 of her chemo. After visiting three doctors, she was comfortable with the fourth psychologist, who was aptly recommended by her oncologist. My friend, at the beginning, kept saying, “What am I going to talk about baby? I’m not great with random conversations like you.” All you need to do is try expressing your fears, I replied.
She found the right psychologist at the right time - just when she was hitting her life’s low in December. After four months, I asked her, “Do you still wonder what to talk to her, during your therapy sessions?” Her immediate response was, “No! I just keep talking. I like her. She’s good. You know, she’s sweet. She just knows the right things to say.”
Well, my friend is right. When she was worried about getting back to Singapore, while fearing a secondary cancer, the psychologist had told my friend, “I’m glad you have stopped worrying about Tilotama now and you seem to be looking into the future anticipating Tilotama - Part 2.”
I realised how true this was. The mind sure needs a positive perspective, especially when the world is full of people, who have no idea what ‘cancer etiquette’ is.
I still find people who come up to me to say:
“I honestly thought your friend wouldn’t make it.”
“Is her treatment done? Is her hair growing?”
Here’s the last straw:
“These days, cancer is like diabetes. Everybody has it.”
“Now, when I think about it, I feel like laughing. At that time, I felt like I was stabbed,” my friend said. This is a classic case of mind over matter, you monkey!
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