Today marks one year after I got hospitalised for the very first time in my life and few weeks after that, I got my official diagnose - yes, I got cancer. I swear I was about to break down, cry (I did, a little bit actually) and maybe scream but my mother was there with me so I can't afford to do just that so I wiped my tears quickly and asked my doctor what's the best next move and the answer was clear as day; I had to undergo a major surgery.
I've had two weeks to prepare myself so I sorted my works, I told the rest of my immediate family members about my upcoming surgery and asked for their understandings as to why I refused any visits from them. They're all understood why I did it this way; except maybe my father who probably told all the members of his circle because several months after that, some random uncle suddenly asked about my health and whether things were going well at the hospital.
I honestly don't remember much after the surgery but I did started working from my hospital bed several days after that. I just can't help it, I know but I felt like if I didn't do any work, there's this emptiness creeps in slowly and I found myself overthinking. A lot.
For about four months after my surgery, I've spent those months at my parents house and I started clearing out my apartment in the city with the help from my brothers as I didn't have much energy to move around. It was around November when I started going to radiotherapy and established quite a nice routine around the sessions. At this point, lots of my relative started asking questions as to why I didn't come to any family gathering on both sides of the family but I just couldn't respond to anything and kept going with my own pace.
About three weeks after my last session, I was experiencing crucial pains along my thigh for several days and I just had to give up and headed to the emergency department. Again.
At this point I was about to give up but seeing my younger brother showed up at the medical bay, I just couldn't. When he just happened to ask me where I was, I was already on bed getting my blood taken for tests and he said he was just going to wait outside; assuming I was visiting a friend and was surprised when I finally gave in and told him I was actually being admitted.
Thus begin the longest time I've spent being hospitalised and probably the worst of times in my life although looking from the outside, I've just had the nicest month-long vacation. I've got Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Viu subscriptions on my TV, the most beautiful view outside my window with the sunset, plane landings and departures, golf course and I even spotted monitor lizards in the pond nearby. I'm not going to lie, there was a point when I question my purpose in life and why do I have to keep going.
I asked Allah every night about the wisdom of my sufferings, the pains, the loneliness and then I question myself about my stubbornness, ego, plead for everything to just end right there.
After 5 weeks spent on antibiotics, I was discharged like a day before Raya and my family understood that there's no way were going to celebrate properly so I took us all to a vacation place nearby where we've had our first Raya with just the five of us - the very first time after my older brother got married 14 years ago. My nephew and niece were sent to their mother's side of family as my nephew still need to go for his dialysis treatments and it's still quite far from the place that we stayed at plus this year was actually meant to be their mother's turn hosting so it was all good for my brother and his first ex-wife.
I spent most March through June going to physiotherapy sessions to improve my mobility and it was around last month I've started gaining my strength back. I used up all my medical insurance limit so I started going to private clinics for medication and after trying three different clinics, I've finally found one that shown positive lab results and their medications have significantly improved my skin condition. Alhamdulillah.
I celebrated my 38th birthday on bed, turned off my phone the whole day and did literally nothing. I sat down in the middle of my apartment alone, thinking I cannot just go back to my life without changing anything especially having gone through the past year so I swam through my things, looked for this laptop and started writing this post.
I know this is a weird time of the year for me to sit down and reflect on things but I guess we all can start anything at any point of our lives so here it is. Here's to a better life; better things, better choices, better people and hopefully a better Muslim.
