The next day my husband and I went to meet the oncologist
without my parents. It was a Saturday, my parents were scheduled to fly back
home the next day. The result of FNAC was coming on Monday as the pathologist
was off duty because of the weekend and the wait was killing all of us. The
oncologist calmly answered all our queries and assured us that treatment for
breast cancer has advanced significantly in the last decade. She suggested for
a mammogram also. As for me, I kept searching her face for a hint of relief,
kept waiting for her to say that we do not have to go through this ordeal…but
she never did. She kept telling us to cancel my parents’ tickets as she doubted
that they will come back for treatment if they ever leave Bangalore. She said
she will contact me as soon as she gets the result of the FNAC test.
As I sat outside the hospital I broke down….cried my eyes
out. I didn’t care if anyone was watching or not. There were passers-by giving
me weird glances but nothing mattered at that time. I just wanted to drown
myself in the pain. There I was sitting with my world crashing down and
everything else in the world is the same. Everything was just fine till
yesterday and now everything has changed. Everytime I tried to make myself
strong and took deep breaths to keep myself together I lost it all the more.
Finally my husband coaxed me that we will ride some more, get some air before
we go home and kept telling me not to break down before my parents. We drove
around the city for sometime. Finally we decided to go home. I was surprised at
myself as to how casually I responded to my parents. They inquired and I just
told them that there is nothing to worry and that we might need a surgery or
not, as soon as the result came out. My mother seemed convinced but my Dad
wasn’t…later he came to both of us and asked for the truth. My husband and I
looked at each other, made my father sit and told him the truth – that there is
a high chance that the tumour is malignant, and surgery is to be done immediately,
followed by biopsy and depending on biopsy result the chemotherapy and
radiation will be decided. He said to himself “She will be fine. All this will
not happen”.
For us, the most taxing question was to let them go back home
or not…we discussed with my parents, siblings and uncles and decided that they
go back home and return to Bangalore on Wednesday. My parents had come to
Bangalore on a vacation and were not mentally prepared to face the surprising
turn of events; it was best for them especially for my Mom to go home and come
again for the sole purpose of treatment. Atleast they will get some time to
sink in everything. It was important for her to accept this before we start
this grueling task…and so they went home with a heavy heart…full of doubts and
fear not knowing that the worst was yet to come.
There was this eerie silence in the house after they left,
this fear that is lurching at all of us and I was finding very hard to calm
down and find peace. Everytime I try to sleep I would run short of breath and
would feel as if suddenly I am running out of air; everytime I tried to eat
something I could not even take a single bite…everything was surreal and I
didn’t know how to handle it. Some of our friends came to visit us and comfort
us; only after they came I could fall asleep in our couch listening to their
voices; atleast the eerie silence was gone.
I went for work on Monday; getting startled every time my
phone beeped. It was around lunch time when our doctor messaged that she got
the verbal report from the pathologist and it is malignant. I read the message
and suddenly felt light and almost fell down. I searched for a chair and sat
down. I went to the bathroom and cried; how do I muster up the courage to tell
everyone? Finally I called my husband and told him; he was also devastated. I
then called my brother and told him too; he felt silent and choked as he spoke.
He asked “So what should we do, Che”? I told him I will do the tickets right
away; told him to decide who is coming with Mom and also strictly told him not
to tell too much to her. He said OK.
My brother and Mom were coming; Dad had to stay back as
someone had to look after the house. My brother wanted to be a part of the
ordeal that was coming and be with Mom. Both of them reached on Wednesday. The
next day she was asked to take full rest and the day after we went to meet our
oncologist. By then, the FNAC result had come and it was found to be malignant.
Mama did a PET CT scan to check if the tumour had spread to other parts of the
body; luckily the report came to be good. Her surgery date was decided on February
21, 2017.
My Mama is a deeply spiritual person and her spirituality
manifested in the best possible way during the course of her treatment. The day
of surgery, she got up really early, prayed, visited the nearby temple,
meditated and finally told us “I am ready!” My husband, my brother and me went
to hospital, got her admitted, did all the proceedings and we were given one
shared room, the next day was her surgery. The day of surgery all of us went to
meet her…she was cheerful and told us that she slept well the previous night.
The nurse came and announced that she has to be taken to the Operation theatre,
she changed her clothes and sat down to pray. Then she held each one of our
hand and prayed for all of us, I was all broken inside. The nurses turned away
and let us have that moment. She said she is scared that she is going to be
unconscious; that she had read stories of patients not coming back to sense
after anaesthesia…we assured her she will be fine. We followed her as long as
we could until the nurses told that we cant be let in. Then we stood there and
waited…hoping, praying and trying not to lose my sanity.
(to be continued)
