Nothing is Permanent

Bittersweet Joy

Well I am back far earlier than I thought I would. The last few days have been hard physically but very very relieving mentally. The supremely good news is I am officially CANCER FREE. The reports came back and they were able to get every bit of the tumor and any residual cells. That is a huge weight off my mind. And while I was climbing rooftops to shout the news out I received news that a good childhood friend of mine had lost his battle to cancer the same day. It hit a bit too close to home this time. He is one of the few people I met every time I went home. On learning of my chemotherapy he had reached out to me over the webs, sharing his story, bickering over the side effects and dreaming of an end to this nightmare. He married roughly the same time as me, had kids aged nearby mine.

On hearing the news I for some reason decided to wash my hands in the hottest water I could stand, scalding the hurt from my skin, whispering prayers of peace and comfort into the spray.  He has left, given up the fight. The cold stone of the sink shot an awakening into my eyes, a jolt stronger than coffee, a reminder harsher than other days.

He is no more.

I have very little to say today.  My heart is still heavy, my eyes are still full of tears.

My heart aches to be at his family’s side, holding their hands, soothing his passing.  My soul yearns to talk to him again, to rewind time, to play side-by-side on the warm summers of our childhood.  I ache to just be able to go back home and see the familiar face. He who had been a rock for over nine months; he who had been one of the voice of understanding I turned to when I was sick. Everything was falling apart.

Because he knew what it meant for everything to fall apart.

But I now know that only one of us would be whole again; only one of us would see our kids grow and learn and become the person, the adult they would grow to be.  One of us.

But not him.

HE LEFT.

It is a gray, gray day here and my heart yearns for everything to just be the way it was last year when I went home. Most of you do not know him but somewhere in Nagpur today there are a set of parents devastated by the loss of their adult child, somewhere a wife lays awake trying to let reality sink in that she has lost her mate and two tired kids sleep hoping when they wake up tomorrow this would just be another nightmare.

So today while my body is OK my heart it sad. Rest in Peace Sachin.

Some things are permanent….

Its going to be a long day tomorrow. Its is going to be permanent day tomorrow. Ironically its an important day in my adopted country’s history. Something that changed a lot here permanently; A cityscape , multitude of lives, the innocence of an entire generation. Its is going to be a similar day for me tomorrow. By this time tomorrow I would have lost a part of my body irreparably irrevocably. I am having a mastectomy tomorrow and its freaking me out. It may sound vain to a lot of you especially guys. Losing a breast may not be such a big deal [Side note: Having breast cancer makes you very callous about using the word breast. It just flows of your tongue much easier than it used to before.] But I digress. Yes there will be reconstruction, yes I will look the same again in a few months but the original part wont be there and that is causing me to be very melancholy about it.

Right since girls hit puberty breasts are very much a part of the landscape. You hide them, flaunt them, nurture your kids with them. Its one of the attributes that define you as a woman and I am scared to lose it albeit for a few months. NO amount of rationalization I am offering my mind is helping the sinking feeling in my heart. Yes there a lot of people out there worse off who have lost far more crucial limbs, there are multitudes out there who have triumphed over losing multiple limbs and are out there doing great things. Yes I do not need my breast as a vital organ but it’s still my pound of flesh, One which has been there most of my life. Parting with it is not easy, saying goodbye to a muscle mass does not have protocols, grieving over an organ has no handbook but I am still going to try.

My one persistent thought is my plan to change my name and move to Mexico so they can’t find me and operate on me but I have a sneaky feeling my kids would definitely find me there. My kids are one of the biggest motivation to get better, to go through with this although the anticipation is killing me. Maybe the new reality tomorrow will not be that bad, maybe like how a great city gathered its ruins and rebuilt a new albeit changed landscape I will be new whole again in a few months but all that seems like such a distant future. If I could just get through tomorrow maybe things would not look so bleak. Today was the day I had asked all of you I needed your help with. The day when everything feels grayscale and I need a rainbow. When there is a fog all around and I need a few sun rays. So tomorrow around noon US time and late night Indian time spare a thought, whisper a prayer, spray some pixie dust and just keep me in mind and maybe in all the anesthesia daze the goodwill will reach me and give me the courage to plow through all this and come out after about 6 hours of surgery on the other side safe and healthy.