4th Time Around

I'm awoken by the sound of my cell phone at 7.00 a.m. Today is one of those days again. I arrive at the hospital quarter to nine, this time unaccompanied. The sessions have become routine-like. I'm a pro. When I walk into the room, the nurse is busy with two other patients. They're both elderly women. I greet them, and they smile at me sympathetically.

The chemotherapy room is filled with myriad variations of hope: optimistic hope, false hope, lost hope. It is also a place where questions keep dripping in synch with the chemo tubes like faulty faucets. Everybody asks about their bloodwork results. Somehow, numbers and figures bring piece of mind.

I start conversation with one of the ladies. She must be in her late sixties. She tells me she used to be a dancer. Now, she's been diagnosed with incurable brain tumor and doesn't know whether she's willing to fight the disease. What can I say? I wouldn't know what to do either.

I talk to her for three hours. It is incredible what kind of life stories you get to hear. If I have to find something positive about me getting ill, it must be this. You meet people whom you otherwise would have never had the chance to encounter. Having conversations with people going through similar things or worse, makes me more mature, and infinitely a better person than I was before.