A Crack in the Dark

The day was as hot and blistering as an Indian summer day could be. The roads of Delhi were spilled with mirages; the heat distorting the air above the sea of charcoal making it waver and shimmer. But for Rohit, the entire world stood at a standstill. With his daughter sitting next to him, barely speaking, his own heart racing, he was oblivious to the wrath of that the Sun God had unleashed oh the rest of his fellow humans. Vidushi was barely breathing, each little gasp that she could muster would send up a piercing pain up her right lung. It seemed as though someone was piercing her side with a sword every time that she tried to take in that vital gulp of oxygen that mortals have come to take for granted.        

They say that love takes your breath away, but if this is what it feels like, she vowed never to fall in love, no matter how much Danielle Steel had made her believe that it would make everything brighter and more beautiful. She glanced surreptitiously at her father who sat there, afraid to even make a sound lest it break her or him... It had been a tough week for him since they had discovered that she had cancer, and they were yet to know what kind it was. Those never-ending scans and biopsies had taken as much of a toll on them mentally that it had on her physically. Last night she had stayed up, unable to move because that would send shooting pains up her chest, and all night she was wondering whether it was these tests that had lead to all the pain.

“Vidushi...” The quiet voice of her father broke her chain of thought. “Yes, Daddy?” she replied, looking deep into his eyes, so hauntingly like hers that sometimes she felt that she was looking into her own eyes. “Would you not rather travel in a cab? You have never liked summers.” She wished she could tell him that the cold air in from the air conditioning felt like a machete carving line of agony inside her, that she was barely holding that smile so that he wouldn’t fall into the chasm of grief at whose edge he was barely balancing. So she smiled and replied with a simple shrug which was as much of an answer that she could give, after all, why waste that painful breath on a lie?

After what seemed like an eternity of the deafening silence between father and daughter, they finally reached the hospital. Vidushi had come to hate the smell that the walls, the plaques, the very air that the stone and granite building emanated from within. All the trauma and fear that she felt with every tick of her watch, she associated with this old building; a temple for those whose own body cells had revolted and grown to bring them down. To which God all of them prayed when they went through chemotherapy? It truly was medicine from the Gods, the harshest but the only one to turn to... In the end, they all had to let their bodies be eroded by this life-giver. But such a life-giver which more often than not gave us mortals a little more borrowed time to prolong the already numbered days that we humans get when we are born. Before Vidushi could further contemplate the outcome of her journey, she was harshly brought back to reality by the beep from the doctor’s cabin, the LED glaring back at her, with the number announcing their turn. She trembled as she entered those chambers, for they did hold the secrets she wanted to keep buried; it was the day for the results. They would finally know what they were up against.

Her father was holding on to a thread, and that thread had somehow had become a promising crack in the dark;” Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Treatment is available with a 95% success rate. We will plan chemotherapy for six months with a PET-CT scan when the treatment is halfway done to check the effect of the medicine on the cells.” What else could a father have asked for than a glimmer of hope; a glimmer which was like the sun breaking through the cover of clouds in an overcast sky. But Vidushi was wishing that it had rained instead, for the sparse narcissism which was nestled in her mind was worried about her luscious hair, for they would be lost; lost to the medicine which would burn away the good as well as the bad from her blood...

She zoned out as they planned out the treatment schedule, but with a hazy hindsight she could see the light which had crept back into her father’s eyes; she could see how he was about to let go of the tears he had been holding back for the past few days, about to let those rivers flood the shores in celebration of the unknown ocean coming into sight. She could see the kind doctor pump up optimism in her father’s brain or should it be his heart, she thought... Once the saviour (as he appeared to her father) had completed the rough procedural strategy, Vidushi quietly followed her father outside. He turned towards her with so much of raw love and relief that she felt the agony almost disappear, as though somehow, the lines across his face had like swords destroyed the insurrection that was growing in her chest and was choking her. Why did one ever need medicines when there was so much love in the gaze of a parent? Maybe humans should focus on harnessing the power of pure, unselfish love; the kind mothers and fathers have. Maybe then they wouldn’t need such medicines which eat away at a person completely; both the obnoxious and innocuous fragments of their being.

The next day was hectic; it passed by in a whirl, with neither the father nor the daughter having time to take in the atmosphere. The pre-admitting procedures took a lot of time, with Rohit running around to get all the bills paid and getting a room booked for her to be administered the medicine. Finally, Vidushi was lying down in the hospital bed, and surprisingly she didn’t feel like she was about to be given a liquid dose of one of the strongest medicines known to mankind. It felt as though she was on a holiday and was lying down in a spacious hotel room with starch white linen and fluffy pillows complete with a television and a spy window! If only her father would not have been so tense to see them push fluids down her PICC line. “It’s to flush out any clots, lest they block the medicine flow.” One of the attendants told Vidushi, as she put into words what her father could not. The session when on for 5 hours, as they changed various bottles that contained the medicines, which had been concocted like a potion, mixed according to her weight and height... The person who was in charge of mixing the medicines looked like the modern version of a wizard, with thick overalls and masked face, all there prevent any direct contact with the medicine. Her father had been called to witness how he was brewing the magic decoction which was intended to inhibit her mutinous cells. Vidushi’s beliefs in the Grimm Brother’s tales were slowly solidifying; after all, wasn’t it they who had long back written in black that every magic comes at a price?

By the time the procedure was complete and the dicey cure had trickled its way into her bloodstream, the night had come out in full glory. Rohit was getting the discharge papers ready while she was sleeping fitfully, dreaming of invisible monsters thirsty for her strength. By the early morning hours, Vidushi had woken up so many times that she gave up all hope for a sound sleep. She glanced at her father who was lying down on the tiny attendant’s bed next to hers, and she was sure that he just had his eyes closed, as though closing those windows to the world would somehow reduce the harshness that this world had brought upon them all. And as if to prove to her how selfless her father’s love was, her quiet sight opened those brown eyes that everyone said were the same as hers... “Did you sleep well?” he asked her, the worries painted all over his face more vivid than those pigments of the Renaissance masters. She looked him over and felt that eternal gratefulness wash all over her. She smiled, trying not to make it seem sad and replied “I slept like a log Daddy! Didn’t even feel them change the bottles!!” And the relief on his face made her eyes tighten up, it seemed as though a river was raging behind her eyes, tossing and wreaking havoc, fighting against the dam, wanting to flow relentlessly.

The drive back to the railway station was a quiet one, with the only time that they stopped was at the nearest pizza place. Vidushi had started feeling this urge to eat as much of the forbidden foods as she could, because within a couple of days, she knew that there would be an upheaval in her body... It's funny how when you’re indisposed, you’re father will let you have anything that you want, solely because he hates seeing needles stuck in you. So, after gorging on that future source of discomfort, they continued their journey towards the railway station. The wait for the train was not as tedious as it was to wait for the train to be opened after it had been parked on the promised platform. Finally, when the train opened its doors to the measly humans battling the Delhi summer, the crowds poured into the compartments like bees in a hive, desperate to find their spot and let the air conditioner cool down those unstoppable rivulets of sweat.

The uneventful ride was like the calm before the storm that wreaked havoc in their household after three days. It started with a stomach ache and constipation, which they didn’t pay much attention to. By afternoon, she had already vomited twice, both her breakfast and the fruits that she had eaten after the first episode. They were as helpless as the sheep in the face of a wolf‘s attack. They were all distraught, more than their daughter. It seemed as though they had become one with her in body and soul, and the pain they felt combined with their helplessness to make it better for her elevated their agony to the levels of the Kailash mountain. One might argue that the sacred mountain has never been scaled, but the loved one has for their children is acknowledged even by Gods to be the greatest of all.

Finally, she drank the daal water to satisfy that hankering that was shaking her very being. She silently went to her room and curled into a ball, as if lying down like a foetus would make her forget all that pain. She was weighing what was scarier; the way her body ached all over, making her feel as if she had been beaten and broken and battered or the vomit which had torn up her throat or was it the fear and impotence that was embossed on her family members’ faces? And every calculation, every little estimate declared the last one’s weight to be more. And that realization in the screaming quietness of the afternoon made her promise to herself that she would be strong. If the disease was stubborn, and the medicine severe, she was going to be sturdy, patient and resilient.

However, she was not so sure of herself when a few hours later she was vomiting her lunch and evening tea on the terrace. The summer wind caressed her cheeks as her father pulled back her hair and let her heave her guts out. That little climb to the terrace which she used to accomplish in a few moments had now induced so much nausea in her that she couldn’t help but cast out whatever little she had eaten in the day. It seemed as if in exchange for being saved, she was being shattered, one sinew at a time. Her mother was the toughest, as she set about to give various ideas how to relieve Vidushi, while her father washed out the bile laced spew that stained the grey terrace in morbid colours.

It seemed as though her mother had alienated herself from any thoughts of the side-effects from defeating anyone; she seemed undaunted by the magnitude of what was in front of them and what was to come. It’s true what people say about mothers being the backbones of families; you take away their unwavering strength, and we all collapse like dominoes. It’s funny how all the ye olde cures come to surface when you face an obdurate illness. Vidushi’s grandmother along with her mother cooked up all sorts of remedies to soothe her agony, but to no avail. With each passing day as her condition worsened, the concoctions became more complex until they gave up and started distracting everyone from this hopeless situation by mentioning any and every relative who came to their mind, who had tried the cures and had not been alleviated immediately. But, in their heart of hearts they all knew that this was just the beginning and there was more to come.

The half-year passed by in a hurricane of visits to the hospital, receiving the treatment, returning, weathering the devastating side effects and the moment it got better, the day to go to the hospital came. It was a dreaded and dreary routine, one which had left Vidushi with a fragile body and had robbed her of her most prized possession; her lustrous hair. When they had started to fall, she was unable to believe what she saw. She had been praying everyday for a miracle so that she wouldn’t lose her hair but after a couple of treatment sessions, her worst fear came true. She woke up to the cruellest of any surprise on her pillow, everyday till finally she hardened herself and got it all shaved off. She cried alone in her room, silently letting the storm in her soul pour out all its misery from the grief laden lids of her eyes.

So now, six months and twice as many sessions later it was confirmed that she was in remission. The hospital reports were very diplomatic in mentioning that there is no perfect cure or a total recovery; she was still liable to being a prey to her own body’s defiance. But until then, as long as she had regular checkups, all would be well monitored and she would remain healthy. Vidushi was almost nostalgic as she waved a last goodbye to the nurses and doctors who had tended to her during those draining and long treatment sessions. They had been like those familiar signs in far off places which make even a nomad feel at home; which makes an expatriate experience a whiff of his native land in a distant country. She wondered what it was that she would carry with herself the longest; would it be the scars on her skin from where the PICC line had been inserted to her heart or would it be the suffering that her very being had gone through throughout the course of these half a dozen months?

As she was weighing these emotions, she seemed to be missing on something. Something which was evading her like light evading darkness after a sunset... As she was gathering her luggage, she stood near the entrance to the ward where a few patients lay receiving their medicine. She was about to move ahead when she saw a young boy, probably in his mid-teens sitting up on his bed, the medicine running into his body through a cannula. He was laughing and talking to an elderly man probably in his mid-sixties. They were discussing a funny story from a comedy show, and she could see a light in both of their eyes. There was no sign of the sword that hung on their heads obstruct their delight in each other’s company. What was here, what was now, they both wanted to make the most of it!

This was what she would carry with herself, she decided, finally stumbling on that missing piece, which she had found in the glowing eyes and naive glee of two humans who were poles apart in wisdom but united in their fight for life. She would carry with her a strength to defeat every tempest, a will to conquer every summit, a vision to be optimistic even in the worst circumstance, a heart that would be forever grateful for all the love and sacrifices made for her. She would carry within the very essence of her being, a burning desire to live, and would not let this fire ever die. For what is lost can never be recovered, but what is existing now can be watered, nurtured so that one day it can grow into a sturdy evergreen which will provide shade when the summers are sultry and fruits when spring is nigh.

GLOSSARY:

1) PICC Line: A peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC or PIC line), less commonly called a percutaneous indwelling central catheter, is a form of intravenous access that can be used for a prolonged period of time (e.g., for long chemotherapy regimens, extended antibiotic therapy, or total parenteral nutrition) or for administration of substances that should not be done peripherally (e.g., antihypotensive agents a.k.a. pressors). It is a catheter that enters the body through the skin (percutaneously) at a peripheral site, extends to the superior vena cava (a central venous trunk), and stays in place (dwells within the veins) for days or weeks.

2) PET-CT:Positron emission tomography–computed tomography (better known as PET-CT or PET/CT) is a nuclear medicine technique which combines, in a single gantry, a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner and an x-ray computed tomography (CT) scanner, to acquire sequential images from both devices in the same session, which are combined into a single superposed (co-registered) image. Thus, functional imaging obtained by PET, which depicts the spatial distribution of metabolic or biochemical activity in the body can be more precisely aligned or correlated with anatomic imaging obtained by CT scanning. Two- and three-dimensional image reconstruction may be rendered as a function of a common software and control system