It is said that Lightening does not strike the same place
twice but then it did to my wife. In my Earlier post I had written of my wife
surviving the breast cancer after 8 months treatment plan including 8 sessions
of Chemotherapy, Left breast mastectomy and a month of radiation therapy. All
was well after these treatments and the entire family started picking up the
threads of life and moving forward. But then the providence had something else
in store for us. Within months of stepping out from the dreaded disease my wife
had lump on the right axial which grew big in days and she rushed back to the
medical oncologist who was reviewing her for a checkup and she was asked to
undergo a surgery to remove this lump immediately. The biopsy of this lump came
back positive for cancer i.e. Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (a type of nodal cancer).
This news indeed shook up my wife as well as us for it is pretty rare for a
back to back cancer of different variety. The treatment plan advised by the
doctors was six sessions of Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy with gaps of 3 weeks
between each session which we started immediately.
Unlike the previous treatment of Chemotherapy which used to
take just about 3-4 hours this time around the session used to last for over 9
hours and quite painful. After each session of the therapy my wife would become
very weak and have bouts of high fever by the 7th day thereby
emergency admission as in patient at the hospital. I was quite worrying
mentally and also quite expensive financially. So during the entire course of
the treatment she had been admitted into hospital on emergency 5 times in
addition to the therapy admission. Finally the treatments were over by end
January 2017 and three weeks later a follow up PET scan confirmed no presence
of cancer cells in her body. I sincerely hope that the threat of cancer has
vanished and I say this because I have read the NHL can only be treated but not
cured and there is a possibility of re-occurrence over a period of time and if
it does happen same treatment needs to be done.
In addition to my wife undergoing painful treatment process,
the mental and physical stress on me was immense. My pillars of strength during
the first cancer, my sisters’ were not around this time since my youngest
sister had emigrated to USA and the younger one had taken up employment. This
meant that I had to be around in the hospital each time my wife was admitted. I
could not go out of the country where I was employed and work peacefully…if I
do not work I would not be compensated and this did add financial strains and
tensions. I was almost mad with all these stress and I really did not have a
shoulder to cry on and I do not know how I pulled through these times.
Fortunately I have been able to tide over these hurdles and I hope that these
never repeat in my life again for surely I will not be able to take up the
stress and strain once again.
My wife is a survivor again the second time and am proud of
the way she has faced this dreaded disease even though there was a threat to
her life during the treatments.
PS: Image Credits : Google Images
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