Okay, finally here after a few days away from the blog.
To be honest, I had a heavy heart these last few days. It was difficult to get my mind into a place where I could sit and write something.
For the last six months, as part of my work, I have been counselling patients in preventive oncology clinics now and then. Most of them turn out cancer-negative after screening. But the positive diagnoses stay with you.
There are people who take it strongly or at least appear to.
There are people who are terrified even of an FNAC or biopsy procedure and need reassurance every step of the way.
There are families who come and tell you that the patient, usually the mother, doesn’t know her diagnosis yet. And then you are expected to discuss surgery and treatment without actually saying the word cancer.
Each situation is different. Some need more thought than others. But over time, you learn to manage it. You learn to counsel. You learn to carry the emotions without taking them home.
Four days ago, someone very dear to me in the family got a possible cancer report. Completely out of nowhere. She was absolutely fine until a week ago. Then came unbearable hip and leg pain. An MRI for a totally different problem. And suddenly a report suggesting possible metastasis.
I don’t think I can describe the kind of fear those few hours created. Then came the PET-CT. Imagine being relieved while still hearing possibilities like multiple myeloma or lymphoma.
Relieved… and terrified at the same time. Happy that it wasn’t the worst-case scenario as I was scared of. Heartbroken that cancer was still very much part of the conversation.
I didn’t know which emotion I was supposed to feel. And that’s when I realised something.
Cancer looks very different when it is sitting across the counselling table and cancer looks very different when it walks into your own family.
I lost my grandmother to oral cancer when I was a child. But maybe I was too young to understand the weight of it back then.
This feels different. This feels heavy in a way that is difficult to explain.
Life doesn’t stop because of it. Work continues. Meals happen. Everything should be done as per schedules and you can’t even do a bad job because of this. Conversations happen.
But there is this constant weight sitting somewhere inside your chest. And you carry it through everything.
Maybe that’s how people become strong. Not because the pain disappears. But because life demands that you continue despite carrying it.
Your mind is somewhere else. Your heart is somewhere else.
And you keep pulling them back to the present again and again.
Days feel longer.
Conversations feel harder.
Everything gets done, but somehow at half the speed or even slower.
And now comes another difficult part.
Everyone trying to be strong for everyone else.
Trying not to break down because somebody else is already struggling.
Trying to hold the family together while quietly falling apart yourself.
And perhaps the hardest thing of all…
Talking to her as if nothing serious is happening.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Trying to find the right words to tell her and the rest of the family what is happening without frightening them more than necessary.
Trying to become the emotional support when you’re desperately searching for your own.
And somewhere in the middle of all this fear, there is gratitude too.
That there are people around us willing to help carry this burden.
Because many don’t even have that.
And yet, despite all the medicine, all the resources, all the support systems… there remains one thing nobody can control.
The person’s own will to fight. Maybe that matters more than anything else.
For now, all we can do is wait, hope, and walk one day at a time.
And somehow trust that we are stronger than we feel right now.
-Jahnavi Chowdary
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