Now lIving The Dream. Daksha Trivedi
me in an incoherent manner. “What did I do wrong?” She offered no words of comfort but repeated the results” Adenocarcinoma2 of the lower oesophagus.” What if it is inoperable? How long have I got? These questions penetrated my mind with such force that I was lost for words. We were told that we would hear more from the multidisciplinary team (MDT) and at that precise moment I realised that my life would never be the same. His eyes soaked in tears, Pradip asked the consultant to check the results again. No one could see the wound that stole his spirit. He refused to accept the findings and quickly bounced back with the resolve to face boldly whatever was going to happen to us.
Our life crumbling before us and still shell shocked, we left the consultant’s office with the Macmillan nurse. My mother looked at me enquiringly, as we made our way to yet another office. Little did we realise that we were being taken to the Macmillan cancer information centre. The nurse could clearly see that we were emotionally in a very difficult place trying to grapple with the news just conveyed to us, but unfortunately, she was unable to provide further help as she was not an oesophageal nurse. She sympathised with our feelings but just could not discuss ‘what next’. Finding my mother waiting alone in the centre surrounded by cancer leaflets, her small face full of anxiety, I agonised over how I would be able to tell her this earth-shattering news. Our world had turned completely on its head as the three of us stood alone in the debris of the diagnosis.
With overflowing tears, we tried to drink a cappuccino in the hospital café, when my mother burst out “God, I have had my fair share”. We knew in our hearts the pain she felt of losing both her boys and her husband. Her voice declared a resolute ‘No’, although her enquiring eyes conveyed a frightening uncertainty of what she was about to hear. We had to give her a soft landing, as we ourselves were in total disbelief and were waiting for further confirmation. I informed her correctly that unusual polyps were discovered in my food pipe which needed further investigation. When we left the hospital, we were extremely distressed, bewildered and felt abandoned. Our new year’s shopping continued in an uninterested manner while the words “you have cancer” continuously played on our minds. Our drive home was disconcertingly quiet as thoughts of my twin brother’s journey haunted me. Having grown up together in the same family, our paths had diverged over time, only to be reunited through his fateful diagnosis. I vaguely remembered his unusual demeanour and eating patterns which now made sense. Little did we know that this would be the last face to face contact he would have with our mother when he visited us on her 85th birthday. We wished him well and he returned back to his world in Canada. Never in my wildest dreams, did I ever foresee this would happen to me and at this moment, I had the will to say, “This is not how the story is going to end”. Deepak, my twin, while bravely positive, masked his innermost concerns fearing the inevitable. In this crisis, he yearned for my help hoping that his dire situation would improve. He believed my faith would go a long way to alleviate his pain, leaving me sometimes feeling inadequate in all my efforts to support him. I saw him summon courage from deep within himself to complete whatever he felt he needed to do in the time that remained.
I was now fearful of going through the same procedures as him, enduring the same pain and worrying that my fate would be the same. It dawned on me much later that somehow being at his side had prepared me to face the challenges that were yet to come. The notorious word ‘cancer’ not only affected my mind and body but ‘spread’ to all aspects of my life and that of my immediate family.
Later that afternoon in our meditation room, Pradip and I talked with a heavy heart and informed Mum that whilst there would be further investigations, doing nothing was not an option. As more tests followed and major surgery seemed likely, my mother rebelled “They can say what they want, but this does not apply to you.” She was determined to will ‘the problem’ away. Gradually, she took charge of the whole situation through simple faith, prayer, and unyielding determination which became the elixir of her blessings. I was astonished by her strategic planning leading the war against my diagnosis, as her denial became her coping mechanism. Her petition to God was a revelation to me, as I had never been able to pray with such conviction. It seemed as if the words ‘Nil Sine Numine’ (nothing without Providence) were etched in her heart.
For the first time in a long time, I felt a mother’s love deep in my heart and I knew I was not abandoned. “Once I have surrendered everything to God, I have no other thought” she rebuked, refusing to engage in any ‘what ifs’ and pursuing her belief so doggedly.
To steer us away from any dispiriting thoughts about my condition, she would cleverly engage us in those long Bollywood films with escapist story lines alive with songs and dance. We felt like we were back in the cheap two anna seats of an Indian cinema where we would lose ourselves for a while in a spectacular make-believe world. Alas, it became a panacea for each of us, silent in our own hidden and unspoken pain.
Is it chance or destiny that comes to teach us how temporary life is? Is it the force of the unknown that turns the joys of yesterday into the wrath of today? Why has all this happened to me?
In the famous work of Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace), we learn that sufferings are our misfortunes. However, being taken a prisoner by the diagnosis, I could relate to Pierre Bezhukhov’s rationale that “When our lives are knocked off course we imagine everything in them is lost. It is only the start of something new and good. As long as there is life there is happiness. There is a great deal, a great deal still to come..”
2 Describes a specific type of cancer
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