I had my breakfast at eight this morning. By this time for the past twenty days, I would have arrived at the hospital and be greeted by the other patients in Radiotherapy. We would have asked each other what number each had in order to see the order of treatment, not that it would make a difference. Few things excite us these days and it is pathetic to suggest that one gets any form of thrill from comparing numbers with the others. For an introvert, that would be horrifying but I was beginning to look forward to it. Why, even Miss Chatterbox was beginning to grow on me.
Yes, I've completed the treatment. All twenty of them. So relieved was I that I bought the radiotherapy team a chocolate cheese cake from Secret Recipe just yesterday. They had been kind to me and I appreciated it.
You see an interesting cross-section of humanity at a hospital. An aura of despair enshrouds each. When you bumped into them for twenty consecutive days, some form of fellowship emerges. A short-term support group, if you will. Behind each face, the despair is replaced by a story and I dwell on stories. I don't delight in another's despair but knowing their story helped me deal with the occasional bout of self-pity which besieges me.
The youngest patient is a Kuantan boy of seven. His adrenal gland was compromised.
At nine every morning, a little girl gets wheeled into Radiotherapy. Gas cylinders presumably filled with oxygen followed her into the room. She was always asleep while they wheeled her in.
Yesterday an old loud man with a hideous growth on his nose joined us. The growth was brown and black with convoluted folds. I was afraid to look at him but from his conversation with the others, I gathered that in his case, the growth came back after his previous surgery and treatment was completed. In his opinion it was the pork knuckles which did it.
An Indian lady in my age group accompanied her frail husband to the hospital everyday. While waiting in line to pay the cashier, we struck up a conversation. Her husband had three different cancer in his lungs, adrenal gland and stomach. He had to go through three different chemotherapies to address each. A total of 30! I barely made it to the 6th but he needed 30 of those. I'm just basically glad I made it.
Here's to Moving On ... one step at a time.
You see an interesting cross-section of humanity at a hospital. An aura of despair enshrouds each. When you bumped into them for twenty consecutive days, some form of fellowship emerges. A short-term support group, if you will. Behind each face, the despair is replaced by a story and I dwell on stories. I don't delight in another's despair but knowing their story helped me deal with the occasional bout of self-pity which besieges me.
The youngest patient is a Kuantan boy of seven. His adrenal gland was compromised.
At nine every morning, a little girl gets wheeled into Radiotherapy. Gas cylinders presumably filled with oxygen followed her into the room. She was always asleep while they wheeled her in.
Yesterday an old loud man with a hideous growth on his nose joined us. The growth was brown and black with convoluted folds. I was afraid to look at him but from his conversation with the others, I gathered that in his case, the growth came back after his previous surgery and treatment was completed. In his opinion it was the pork knuckles which did it.
An Indian lady in my age group accompanied her frail husband to the hospital everyday. While waiting in line to pay the cashier, we struck up a conversation. Her husband had three different cancer in his lungs, adrenal gland and stomach. He had to go through three different chemotherapies to address each. A total of 30! I barely made it to the 6th but he needed 30 of those. I'm just basically glad I made it.
Here's to Moving On ... one step at a time.
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