Saturday, April 17, 2010

As simple as that

I was sort of having a fever. My head was burning and the heat made my cheeks turn red, but my body was shivering - two blankets and I still felt cold. A nurse came with a thermometer and a pulse oximeter. My temperature was 37.9 and my heart rate was 125. I could go home only if that was just a spike, and my temperature would go down to normal next time the nurse checked. I needed to drink more water. Iced water. I needed to do something so that this stupid fever could go away. And then Andrei called. "Hi Bunny!" I wanted to cry over the phone: "I am having a fever and they won't let me go home.". "Ok Bunny, everything is going to be fine. Remember how I taught you to breathe? Just inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale, and do it several times. It will make you feel better. Are you listening to me?". I did listen to him. And they released me in the late afternoon.

**

I could not sleep. This time it wasn't because my aunt was snoring so loud that the sound penetrated even through my earplugs. It was this terrible headache, probably the worst I've had in years, that drove me crazy. 2 Tramadols and 4 Aspirins could not help. The next morning my (other) aunt insisted that all I need is "a home-made steambath." She boiled a big pot of leaves from Prof. Welsh's lemon tree and star-fruit tree, crushed ginger, lemongrass, and some other herbs she got from the corner shop 10 meters away from Prof. Welsh's house. Then there I was, sitting naked next to the still boiling pot, under a thick blanket, trying to inhale the pleasing scent of the herbs and letting my body sweat as much as it could. 15 minutes later, as I dried myself with a towel, the headache was completely gone.

**

"Exercise, you need to exercise. You can't just sit at home and read all day", said my aunt as she dragged me out of the house and to a small park nearby. "But I'm tired and it's gonna rain again soon." "You're tired because you're inside too much. And we'll bring an umbrella." It took us 5 minutes to walk to the park, and I immediately found myself a bench to sit down. My aunt gave up on me and continued to walk around the park. As I looked around, I realized although it just stopped raining no more than half an hour ago, and there were still dark clouds clogging the sky, the park was not as empty as I had thought. There was an old Indian lady wheeled by an Indonesian maid who looked rather content. Another Indonesian maid was walking two big dogs around the park and speaking on her cellphone at the same time. A white man with a book in his hand hurriedly passed by my bench. I was surprised at myself. I was just doing some simple people watching - I wasn't judging or making up some stories of those people in my mind like I would under normal circumstances. I smiled and felt happy.
***

It is easy to let chemo and its aftermath drown you in tiredness and depression. But in fact, it is easier to make yourself feel good. A proper breathing technique (or a reach-out to your friends), a home-made steambath (or an aunt, and in my case, more than 20 aunts), or a 5 min walk (or the simplicity of some fresh air and a lazy afternoon in a strange park) is all it takes to do the trick.

It is not easy to forget chemo and its side effects. But It is easy to forget that the best feeling in the world is feeling alive. And chemo keeps me alive.