3. The Verdict
The letter said bring someone with you. My heart sank but still something whispered maybe it because I might need someone to hold my hand again. They did after all mentioned that they needed to take more biopsy. With that whispering in my ears, I decided to pull myself together and decided to go out and smile a little bit more, make someone else’s day brighter.
Dance time again. Maluma sweated out “Sobrio” followed by Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes with “The time of my life”. I sometimes wondered if my neighbours thought I was having a party everyday, all day long!
16th February dawned upon me. My friend drove me to the hospital. A long tiny corridor lead us to a small cold waiting room, with chairs placed against the wall around the 3 walls. Suddenly we heard a woman scream and chairs falling to the floor. We looked at each other; no clue what that was. A nurse came to get me and I followed her. My friend waited in the waiting room. As I entered the room, it felt so odd; there were 4 people around the room and an empty chair for me. I sat down slowly, looking at everyone. The doctor moved her chair closer to me, looked directly into my eyes and said something but I only heard the words, “breast cancer” and then she introduced everyone in the room (but nothing registered in my mind). There was dead silence. Everyone was waiting for me to react, everyone was ready to hold me in case I fall off the chair. Now I knew what that screaming was earlier on - some one got the bad news. I simply stood up and said slowly “what stage?”.
The doctor took me by my shoulder and made me sit down again and started to talk and draw on the paper that was on on the patient bed. She drew my breast, my right breast, and marked where the tumours were. Early stage. The TUMOURS! Horror! She mentioned their sizes but they all sounded huge and monstrous to me. I badly wanted the songs to come back to me; I wanted to play my play list, anything to numb my brains. Then I heard her say, that I need to take the biopsy again, the one near the armpit. I looked at her and said “lymph nodes” and she nodded. That’s the one worrying them. The other two, no problem, can be removed by surgery. We talked for a while, and when I heard the word chemo, all I could say was “I will loose my hair, right?” and they nodded. They were giving me the facts - still no tears. They were going to take care of me, no doubt there. I walked out of the room towards my friend and simply said, “I have cancer!” She hugged me & said “it will be fine, you are a strong woman”.
Nothing seem to register in my mind. I was in a shock, a SHOCK! The doctor taking the biopsy assured me that breast cancer, if he may say so, was the “kindest” of all cancer. I closed my eyes and went into Alice in Wonderland’s world for a while. It was worth it. I imagined someone holding my hand and saying “I’ll be by your side”. It was a kind person and it is only for me to know.
Reached home, called my sister Usha in Malaysia and chokingly told her the news. I must get use to the idea saying “I have cancer” which sounded like in a tear jerking movie. But no, I did not cry. Informed my very good friend Katarina and said the same thing. Somehow, it was getting lighter by repeating the word cancer. But it was still abstract. Far away…to comprehend what was actually happening.
The most difficult part was to break the news to my youngest daughter Natasha. Thank God I was still in a shock, so I did not cry while explaining it to her, drawing out my cancer to make it easier for her to understand. She is a miracle child, and she understood that I was not going to die but will have pain.
The shock lingered on. I welcomed Latrice Pace’s “Don’t give up” and dived into IG. There’s always people who reach out to you all the time…and also to know who will stand by you and who runs away from the reality of knowing you have breast cancer. Believe me there are people who do not want to associate you with cancer.
I heard the Whispers of people around me …”be strong”.
February 2022