Appointment

I walked with mum in the light rain along the creek, taking our time to go to the hospital. As if taking the long route there will delay the appointment, delay the inevitable meeting with the doctor. Some plum blossoms were already in bloom, coating the tops trees with bright red against a sky of gray.

Like every so often in the weeks I have been here, we talked about life, and death. It is a solemn topic of conversation, yet somehow it often enters into our minds and escapes our mouths, however much I want to avoid it. Death is always around the corner, but most people forget that, until they face it straight in the face. At one point, the question to ask is not when, but how... how to die, and perhaps more importantly, how to die peacefully and without regrets, without remorse.

There is a movie sometime ago about two men who meet by chance in the oncology ward. They are living their last breaths of life, yet they decide to make a list of things they want to do and fulfil before they finally 'hit the bucket'. They decide the escape the dreariness of the hospital, the daily treatments, pills and medication. And they decide to travel, to make amends with estranged loved ones, to fulfill lifelong dreams they probably were never close to fulfilling if it were not for the terminal illness.

Sometimes, when faced with a choice, one must decide. Do I want to live and die under medication and the watch of doctors and nurses... or do I want to live fully and die happily accomplishing what I never thought I could accomplish, yet am blessed to still have the energy and ability to accomplish...?

Those are questions mum and I talked about. It is no light conversation, and at times I asked myself whether I am 'pushing' her too hard to face the facts, when it is already hard enough to be constantly faced with your own mortality, your own fragility... However pure my intentions are, I often do wonder if I am helping her, or hurting her, by talking about death and her illness so frankly with her. My fear is that she bottles it all inside, bottles it all deep down and seals it all up, so that all these fears and frustrations fester and rot, making her mind even more restless and agitated than ever...

For a change, I did not go into the appointment with mum, but instead waited outside. "You go in and have a talk with the doctor," I said. In a way, to respect her privacy, and to let her decide her own treatment and her own life, without me (or my brother, or my sister-in-law) hanging around and looking over her shoulder. In another way, it is my own way of 'letting go', for one day very soon, I'll have to walk away from this all, and I must start to 'let go' bit by bit...

Brother, my sister-in-law and I waited and waited outside the doctor's room. A lady in an armchair, looking lost and delirious kept on talking into the air, repeatedly saying, "I'm having dreams... I'm having dreams in my sleep." On her contorted face were the marks of worry, remorse and indescribable feeling of being lost and confused.

Mum came out of the doctor's room, and on her face was a change compared to before. She looked more hopeful, more reassured, a little less troubled. The neurosurgeon spoke for a long time with her, and took the time to listen to her, to assess her situation.

There are two types of doctors... there are ones who hark on treatment, who emphasise and strongly believe in science and the wonders of modern medicine... and there are doctors who empathise with the patient's needs and wishes, who believe that every individual has a right to life, and right to a dignified bidding farewell to life. The neurosurgeon mum recently had the fortune of meeting was the latter kind, and repeatedly she told me how  privileged she felt to receive his wise counsel and second opinion.

He does not promise a miracle solution. Again, he emphasised that whatever treatment mum is to undergo to halt, or at least control, the spreading of the tumour in the spinal column, must be assessed against the quality and expectancy of life. Surgery is an option, one with great risks, yet also long-term benefits if it is successful. But it is an option worth pursuing only if the expected length of life is longer than six months. Why undergo the pain and suffering of surgery if the cancer is going to spread rapidly around the body and eat away everything within within a few months anyway? I saw the neurosurgeon come out of the office-- a middle aged man with a slightly crooked back, a forehead of frowns, beady eyes, yet somehow on his face was to be found compassion and understanding.

In the coming week or so mum will have to go back to the hospital for more tests, more scans, more appointments, in order for the doctor to make a full assessment of the state of her health, and life expectancy. I will be here to accompany her till the very end... and for now, I am still scheduled to conclude my stay with her in around ten days time. That is the plan for now, and it is a plan that at present best accommodates her wish to see me go off to do my own things, and accommodate my desire to finally bring an end to my studies and perhaps make a start to my career.

All this may very well be very heavy to digest, and perhaps I do not really realise the implications of the latest appointment, or the importance of being with mum when the results come out early March. But with the heaviness comes a strange, strange calm.

I have done what I could in the last two months... in the last two years... However much longer I stay here, whatever else I do here, I can only offer so much, I can only do so much. I cannot take the cancer away. I cannot calm mum's mind or soothe her pain if my own mind is frightened, agitated and in pain.

Yes, with all this heaviness there flows a strange, strange calm.

For how else are you going to face all this but with calm, however strange that calm may feel like?