Hope

"Looks like she is responding well to this treatment. Let us see how it goes the next few days to determine if we need to change the dosage." The research doctor smiled, patted her friend's shoulder and walked to the next bed.

It was just a week ago when she started her treatment. Her friend, her happiest, chirpiest friend, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer of the stomach. It all started 2 months ago when she had trouble urinating. At first, she thought it was just UTI, and so did the doctor at the clinic she went to. She was given medication but when it became worse, she was rushed to the hospital.

A scan showed there were some growth around her urinary tracts and she was referred to an urologist and a surgeon, who recommended surgery immediately. They didn't say much then and all of us hoped for the best.

The surgery took a long while, 5 excruciating hours for us who were waiting outside, anxiously. We were all taking turns to pace around the waiting area when the doctors stepped out of the operating theater. Both had worried looks and gave as detailed summary as they could.

The gist of it was that they removed all the parts of the organs which they thought was the source of the cancer as well as all around the kidneys and urinary tracts. But the tumor, said to be aggressive, had spread to parts that could not be removed and there was too much to be removed. The bottom line, there were still cancer cells in her.

The surgeon was not hopeful, gave her a month, at max 3 months to live and asked her family to prepare themselves. We were all shocked, too shocked for words. Nobody, I meant nobody, would have seen this coming. Her friend, was one full of positivity. She led an active lifestyle, went to the gym almost everyday, she was always baking and would give away her most delicious cookies, dumplings to her family and friends. She was a friend to many. She was always full of positivity and kind thoughts for those around her.

She was heavily sedated and by the time she snapped out of it, we didn't know how to break it to her but she could see it in our eyes and asked that we told her the truth. As she listened, she kept silent. Her eyes welled up and we could see hope slowly diminished from her eyes. It crushed us to see her this way but we still had hope, because as long as she was breathing, there was a chance we could turn it around.

Her family consulted the urologist who looked kinder than the surgeon. He gave an option, a new hope, to what was almost lost earlier. He recommended his acquaintance, an oncologist research doctor at another hospital, a university hospital, who may help. The research doctor, a professor, was trying out new treatments and the urologist had helped to make an appointment.

When we heard that, we were almost overjoyed but we knew the fight has just begun. We needed her to be positive, to have hope and to fight. We were doing our own research too and it was written somewhere that cancer cells feed on negativity and depression. We could not and would not let that happen but we needed to be positive ourselves.

She stayed at the hospital, while her surgery wounds heal and the family made arrangements to transfer her to the other hospital. I visited her every week, whenever I could. I could see pain in her eyes but I tried to keep her mind of things. I would joke with her, remembering happy memories. I would massage her legs, her hands and helped her in any way I could.

She needed as much support as she could get. While the medical part of things was beyond my capability and skills to help but one thing was for sure, I could give her gifts of positivity and words of encouragement. Happy thoughts, happy cells. Happy cells, hopefully would take over and heal her. It didn't matter how they started, most importantly was that they end.

Now, here we were, at the university hospital, looking at her, as she underwent her new treatment. It was a form of chemotherapy, but a different kind, as we were told. I wasn't sure how different it was with a standard chemotherapy but it was a new hope for all of us.

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