Mariyum Story

There are no drips on me

It’s only a word yet it strikes fear into the hearts of anyone who hears it. It’s basically a taboo; you can’t talk about it in public or dare mention the word. In fact they flee off even before its inception. Why are people so petrified of doing so? I absolutely can not fathom it. In all honesty guys, cancer isn’t that hard to deal with. Albeit, there are days when you feel like this is the end, you don’t want to fight anymore, but THAT is the time you HAVE to work twice as harder; because you have to battle not only the physical illness but also the mental

I was only 18 when I conceived cancer: classical Hodgkin lymphoma; Something I couldn’t even conjure up in my wildest dreams. I mean I had my entire life planned out: finishing my A levels, going to a reputable university, finding a suitable career and etc. So believe me when I say that this news was like I had been hit with a nuclear bomb. Though one thing which my doctor said to was “out of all the bad things, this is the best” and THIS was a game changer for me. I guess it’s all about the perception; keep an optimistic one and surely you’ll succeed.

I underwent 6 excruciatingly painful and perceptually long months of chemotherapy. However, the physical pain doesn’t even compare to the psychological trauma. i had to had to withdraw from college; my friends graduated and moved on; lost my hair; and not to mention that I could have died. Moreover, the worst shock was losing my hair, oh the pain that I felt when locks of my hair simply fell into my palm from even a gentle stroke. I became a recluse, shun everyone out, threw tantrums and was basically a major pain in the behind. Yet my family stood strong with me, held me tightly when I broke apart and were constantly in the pursuit of making me happy. Hence you can just imagine the sheer joy we all felt when my results came out and I was cancer free. We were all actually sitting in my lounge desperately waiting for the revelation of the pet scan and each passing moment was like a nail was being bore into our skins. Though as soon as the news broke out you can not imagine the scene. Everyone was screaming with glee, cheering with tears, and needless to say, I was being smothered with warm hugs.

Happy ending right?

Errrr… not so much.

In reality I had contacted TB because of my low immunity, Alas, that was chill cause anything is better than stupid chemo, so I didn’t mind that.

So this was it, right?

I overcame TB and everyone lived happily ever after?

Wrong again!

Turns out I relapsed…

Just great right? God just loves me the most! ^^

I was so scared to death that I’ll have to face the perils of chemo again and on top of that SECOND line chemo, which is more potent. Albeit turns out that fate had some mercy on me and I only had to receive first line radiation which, apart from my skin peeling off, wasn’t that bad. Therefore, everything went swiftly.

So, you must be thinking, surely she was cured now?

*buzz* righ….WRONG!

I RELAPSED FOR THE MOTHER LOVIN THIRD TIME!!!!!

(DARN IT, I’M GETTING EXTREMELY PISSED JUST THINKING ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW!!….wait, I’m supposed to be *cough* inspirational *cough* =p)

Anyway, this time I had to go for a bone marrow transplant a.k.a stem cells surgery. One would think that my confidence would have been blown to smithereens. However, this did not happen, surprisingly I was nonchalant as ever, partly because of my friends.

The transplant has by far been the most difficult thing I’ve ever encountered in my life. One month of isolation (with only one attendant) truly broke me. Especially since my own mother couldn’t be with me. She had becomes victim of the treacherous winter flu. Suddenly my safe haven had been stripped from me. My everything, my whole world, my reason to live had been taken away. I had become a total recluse again, ceased talking to everyone, shut myself up and ignored everything. So how did I overcome this? Wee;, one thing my friend, Akbar messaged me (whom I seen zoned) was that “every passing moment is a step closer to home“ I held onto this with whatever fight I had left.

It was hard coping with my disease, but I did it with drugs!!!Just joking

Even though I had been declared clinically depressed and was on anti depressants, that wasn’t the reason I became headstrong; no! I actually stopped taking them after a short while. Actually after the initial shock, I wasn’t scared of it anymore. One thing that absolutely swells my chest with pride is that I have never thought of myself as being sick. (Lol, it’s just a way for doctors to make money). This is actually true; whenever I tell people about y disease and they go like “awwwnnnnn”, I go like “heaven naawww, we make insensitive jokes about cancer =p”,

Guys, you need to have a staunch belief that this is a just a temporary ordeal and the being optimistic is the key. One thing I’ll tell you what I did. When I relapsed the third time and my oh so beautiful hair started to fall again, I was actually talking to my friends at that time. I took a lock of my hair, made it into a hair puppet called El moocho and made the most random videos with him. Remember that positivity is paramount

Also you, like me must have thought at point, “why me? What did I ever do to go through such pain? Does God hate me?” well, the answer is God loves all his beings and shall never do anything to harm them, this is just a test, and the reward in the afterlife will be quadruple of our current suffering. Subsequently, whenever I used to feel stressed I used to talk it out with my friends about my queries and have even cried in front of them. They used to make me see the logical side, that would you rather not undergo this treatment and live the next 30 years or do you want to just give up and live for 1 year only.

One thing I want to highlight and make everyone follow is that, we need to sit down with our loved ones, be it our immediate family, distant relatives, peers and etc; and talk to them about cancer. The point is to remove this bad aura surrounding the word.

Why do I say so?

So that all those who are bearing this ailment can easily accept it. Like in my case, I could not even utter the word thinking that I’d be the centre of pity for everything and that’s the last thing me or anyone wants.