What does it mean to ‘almost die?’
December 2015. Close to New Year’s Eve, I found my throat swelling up again. A huge part of me froze in its tracks and I didn’t know what to comprehend anymore. Two months ago, I was given a green signal, right? No more cancer, I was assured. I was rushed to do an ultrasound of my neck, and to a different centre. My heart could pulse out of my chest and run away. A doctor comes, firm, a very no-nonsense guy. Asks me to lie down, stretch out my neck, and puts a cold jelly on it. It tingles on my skin and he pushes a medical probe hard on my throat. Very hard. I had to ask him to lighten the pressure. He does and keeps moving the probe around. I had no medical probes on my chest to count my heartbeat but I am sure if it were there, an auditorium could hear how loud my heart was thumping. I am sure he could also. He asked me to calm down, I did not listen. He affirmed it again, this time sternly and said “there is a huge lump I can find, only if you stop squiggling like this I can figure out what is this. Gah, a lymph node. A huge one. This needs to be tested’, he exclaimed. The exact same words, which were told to me during my first ultrasound where they found out of my past diagnosis. My stomach dropped, everything dropped. I cried and ran out. They brought me in again, the nurse was calming me down and my mother was explaining it to him, how I had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and how it was through swollen lymph nodes, but I am out of it now. He said, okay but this is quite huge and this needs to be tested again. I died. Cried. Wailed. Snatched tissues out of the nurse’s hands, wiped that cold jelly off, and ran out of the chambers. Ran far out. Out on the road and broke down hysterically. Yes, I sat on the middle of the road and bawled my eyes out. My mom was still inside making payments and collecting the reports. The nearby chemist came and asked me what was wrong, and I exclaimed ‘I’m gonna die, I don’t want to’. My mom came out, got me to my senses and walked me home. I remember crying my eyes out. I don’t remember anything else. Yes, one thing I clearly recall is the feeling that went inside my soul… that feeling that ‘I am going to die. That I have a limited time left, and that I cannot do things I wanted to do, I don’t have a whole complete life and that I know this is going to end and there is nothing I can do about it. Everything I dreamt will go to waste and I’ll be Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars, dead’. I kept asking my mom “I am going to die right? I don’t want to die”. She said ‘what nonsense’ and then she broke down. After a point she stopped answering my questions and asked the same to my dad. It was already a traumatic event, those 7 months, and now this, this is the end. I reached home, sat at home and cried, cried till I fell asleep. I know the only person I wanted, NEEDED to see was my doctor.
I got the quickest appointment, my doctor, the most chilled, composed guy ever, called me straight ASAP, asked his secretary to clear everything else out and accommodate me. It was December 31st. I had a bulged face from all the crying and on the way to see my doctor, I had stopped at a stationary shop. The only way I could be a little bit happier and calm was by buying pens, so I did that. By dad got down with me and said I can buy whatever I want. He knew this was the only way I could get some peace in this mayhem. I bought a new diary and few pens and then left. Always held them close to me. Once, we reached, I remember, it was so late, and my doctor still was there. Empty chambers and no patients. The secretary had also left for the day as soon as we arrived. My dad jokingly asked my doctor, ‘What doc, no plans for new year?’ and he replied ‘What plans? First let’s see why this madam has cried sooo much’. He examined my throat and checked my reports, and concluded, yes, I have swollen lymph nodes. There, the water works began again. One thing you should know about me is that I cry a lot and about my doctor- he has heard me cry every time and doesn’t really calm me down but makes me laugh by making fun of me or just lets me be. This time he let me be. I kept crying and saying ‘I’m going to die’ and that’s where he intercepted saying ‘woah woah, calm, calm’. He said we don’t really know what this is, and when I asked has it come back, he responded by saying, ‘I don’t think so, but we need to get some tests done’. There was some positivity and surety in his voice, though he did not give me a green signal, that there isn’t anything wrong. He quickly called his colleague, and schedule a PET for me, the first thing in the morning. So, On 01 Jan 2016, I’d start my year by going for a PET, something I absolutely dreaded. I know it was urgent, I could feel the urgency in his voice as you cannot just barge in and get a PET done like this, and him calling and personally requesting his colleague to push my case early was something out of the blue. Since there were cases already scheduled, I was asked to come an hour early. Yes, an hour early from when the hospital even opened. ‘6AM be there please and then come see me’, he said. ‘I don’t think there is anything much to worry about, though we need to be 100% sure, and please don’t cry tonight, go enjoy and sleep off early’ he affirmed again.
Once I went back home, I stayed up with some of my friends, they knew how bad my anxiety levels were and then went back home and slept after wishing everyone a happy new year. Next morning, I woke up, relatively calm but anxious at the same time and just kind of knew it in my gut that it will be a good day. Fast forward, well my scans came clean, my doctor was very happy, gave me a green flag and I was off for a newer start. To those curious, they were swollen by dead lymph nodes which would just be floating inside till they don’t disintegrate and come out of my body. Creeped out? Yes, understandable.
Well, I never had such a jaw breaking, stomach churning, heart wrenching episode before and even though through my treatment I have been scared, and anxious and had a cocktail of emotions, this feeling, this strong feeling of ‘omg I am going to die’ never came. I have been in a position where I almost did die, where it was a ‘do or die’ moment, but the thought that your life is limited, is such a fucked-up thought, yet an understated truth, that its true for everyone. If you are reading this right now, you are almost going to die, anytime and yes your life is limited. Wow, negativity 101, right? But its true, the feeling I had that day was that my days are limited, and the feeling I have right now, knowing I am healthy and well, is that my days are limited. Knowing when you are going to die, is a gut-wrenching feeling, don’t get me wrong, but knowing that you are going to die, also falls in this realm of realisation which needs to dawn upon everyone. So yes, you are going to die, I am going to die, and this can happen anytime. Today, tomorrow, day after, next month, year, 20 years down, 80 years down we don’t know. You know this, you aren’t an idiot and my purpose were not to remind you this fateful thought.
The reason I wrote this was because in those hours of feeling that my days are coming to an end soon, a predominant thought that ran through my head was ‘Damn I wished I had done this, or I have not done this and I wont be able to’. Yes, regrets mostly. Things I wanted to do, but thought I can’t, that feeling that I wont be able to see the light of many days to come, will be missing out on so many things, that I will not exist in face or in my soul after some time and that everything about me will be a chapter done. Not even once I felt that ‘I have lived XYZ years of my life and its complete the way it is and I am happy to bid adieu’, no. To say you feel shit when you have this feeling is an understatement, but this feeling is there. IT WILL REMAIN AND WONT GO. So, do you need to feel like you have few years down the line to actually start living? If you were to know, for a fact that you have a limited amount of years in your hands right now, would you say ‘I have lived XYZ years of my life and its complete the way it is and I am happy to bid adieu’. Will death find you while you were living or have died? What would hurt you the most, the fact that you are saying goodbye, or the fact that your visit is incomplete. This isn’t a YOLO post, for you to harness the second and carpe diem your time and tie a cord and jump off a cliff or run to your girl and profess your love or even better quit your job, run on the streets with an awoke realisation. Well if that makes you happy, go ahead and do that… but the mere intention of this article is just to answer this question “Will death find you alive?”
A small piece
of truth
I do not carry a
sickle or scythe.
I only wear a
hooded black robe when its cold,
And I don’t have
those skull-like
Facial features
you seem to enjoy
Pinning on me from
a distance. You
Want to know what I
truly look like?
I’ll help you out.
Find yourself
a mirror while I continue
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