It is 12 o clock in the night and she just woke up coughing. I gave her the medicine and sent her back to sleep. She will wake up again in an hour. I know. It has been this way for a week. The doctors say that the cough should be gone before tomorrow. We have an operation date set for next Wednesday. Today is Friday.
My mom has cancer. The disease that is so similar to life that doctors are still struggling to identify it before it becomes a part of us. Sadly, for her it is a part of her. We discovered it too late. It was our fault. Me and dad were to self absorbed to notice the things that were wrong with her. Her lethargy, weakness and anger were not symptoms of boredom, but the malaise that was eating her from within. It was 6 months ago.
Everyone is asleep now. Dad won't wake up if I played 'Stairway to Heaven'. He is tired too. Running with a file from one window to another at the Tata Hospital can do that. If there ever was a purgatory where the dead wait forever, it was at Tata hospital in Parel. We usually turn up at 8 in the morning, mom in tow. Then our file begins its seemingly neverending journey through the corridors. From ECG to Chest Xray to PAC to OPD. The abbreviations are misleading, for the lines are often long enough to make cancer patients wish for a faster death. In the midst of all this, there is the family. Hoping, struggling, balancing work, home and trips to the hospital in the false hope of lengthening the days of their loved ones. It's a bitch!
Yet, here I am writing. Doing it so that some day when she is gone, and she will be gone, I will have a record of what I felt when she was around. Maybe the days to come will teach me something I will only learn later. Maybe these are my letters to the future.
My mom has cancer. The disease that is so similar to life that doctors are still struggling to identify it before it becomes a part of us. Sadly, for her it is a part of her. We discovered it too late. It was our fault. Me and dad were to self absorbed to notice the things that were wrong with her. Her lethargy, weakness and anger were not symptoms of boredom, but the malaise that was eating her from within. It was 6 months ago.
Everyone is asleep now. Dad won't wake up if I played 'Stairway to Heaven'. He is tired too. Running with a file from one window to another at the Tata Hospital can do that. If there ever was a purgatory where the dead wait forever, it was at Tata hospital in Parel. We usually turn up at 8 in the morning, mom in tow. Then our file begins its seemingly neverending journey through the corridors. From ECG to Chest Xray to PAC to OPD. The abbreviations are misleading, for the lines are often long enough to make cancer patients wish for a faster death. In the midst of all this, there is the family. Hoping, struggling, balancing work, home and trips to the hospital in the false hope of lengthening the days of their loved ones. It's a bitch!
Yet, here I am writing. Doing it so that some day when she is gone, and she will be gone, I will have a record of what I felt when she was around. Maybe the days to come will teach me something I will only learn later. Maybe these are my letters to the future.
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