Pre Chemotherapy Blood Test

Walking towards the Oncology Ward was hard.  You get the sense that you are walking down a dark tunnel, the only way into obscurity, and the only way out.  The crowd which thronged the corridor thinned out significantly by the time you reached the Ward.  It wasn't a pretty sight.  You gaze upon a sea of adversed wretchedness and wondered how it was that you came to this.

I took a seat at the waiting room.  A woman wearing a scarf walked slowly towards me.  My mind screamed out.  "Don't sit next to me.  Please don't sit next to me."  Unfortunately, she sat right next to me while I made the slow transition from horror to realisation.  Who am I kidding?  I have become one of them. I widen the angle between us.  Too much reality on too bleak a morning.

They called my number so I went for the blood test.  While waiting outside, I met an elderly lady who was reading a book and listening to some Praise songs.  She told me she was a Div 1 civil servant.  I have no idea what that meant except that she teaches at the Methodist Boy School.

She too had breast cancer.  She spoke to me about the Book of Job and how I was not to allow anyone to judge me as Job's friends had judged him.  In the course of our conversation, she spoke about meditation. How the process of meditation clears one's mind and opens them up to the Devil.  She advised me not to delve into Yoga or Tai Chi since these meditative exercises carried with it plenty of spiritual symbolism.  She spoke of more but I was too befuddled to absorb them all.

After the blood test, we were asked to collect three packs of anti-nausea medication meant to be taken over three days.  Then we were referred to a nurse whose job it was to explain the entire procedure.  All things being in order, we were asked to return on the following morning for the chemotherapy.