The Butterfly

 “There is no greater agony then bearing an untold story inside you” – Maya Angelou

 

 It was the summer of 2013 and my family was on the verge of a crisis. My mother was diagnosed with CA-Ovary at its third stage and needed immediate surgery unless her life was at stake. Some blood tests and a CT- scan confirmed the severity of her condition. The amount of cancer antigen 125 (CA-125) in the bloodstream rose to a threatening level of 400 which in the normal scenario should be in the range of 0-35 units/ml of blood. It was like a bolt from the blue for my entire family and the reports at first instant shook me heavily from inside.

It was just after a one and half year of my joining in Assam Asset as an AEE (Production). Until then, I was only familiar with the problems of Complex numbers, Numerical analysis, Laplace transformation, and other engineering subjects had offered me during my graduation and post-graduation. But how to solve this problem that life has thrown at my face? Honestly speaking, I had no idea. 

The memories of the day are still vivid in my mind when my father and sister see off me and my mother with moist eyes in the Dibrugarh airport, as I was taking her to Mumbai for surgery. It was all arranged within a span of 8 days from making an appointment with the Oncologist, booking

the guest house and air tickets and also applying for a personal loan in case I might need it for the surgery. And amidst all this chaos and uncertainty another chapter happened which changed my life for good.

Attached as I was to the fairy tales in my childhood, however, it was no big surprise when I met 

the man who I thought came from my girlhood fantasies and fell hard and fast in love without 

any fairy godmother to hold me back for a moment and say, “Now, hold on just one damn 

minute!”

There he is – As I entered through the check-in gates of the Dibrugarh airport, my eyes started searching for him in every corner and finally spotted him standing in the middle of a queue in one of the counters for check-in. Coincidentally, we were travelling by the same flight up to Delhi! We shared few glances with each other and I was just waiting impatiently to talk to him.  Hey, wait. This was not the first time we were going to talk. In fact, there were few conversations over phone with my prince charming who was kind, compassionate and humble too as per my perception. The perfect man I pictured in my mind! So, the screenplay I have written for my love life was now coming true on the big screen and as though he was the actor  and had been given the script, he offered an Oscar-winning performance for his leading role as  “The man of my dreams.” The first meeting went off well with admiring stares, a few pounding heartbeats and small conversations at the waiting lounge of the airport.

A month passed by in Mumbai visiting hospital and doctors and after a successful hysterectomy and R0 resection (no gross tumour remains in the primary tumour bed) my mother was finally out of danger. The whole period was full of pressure, doubts, mental instability and fear for the inevitable. Amidst these, there was only a ray of light – Aaditya! Every now and then, his name started to show up on my phone screen and as the name flashed, I felt a surge of blood on my face. I started sharing my mental condition and find relief in him.