50/50

I can't remember the last time I cried so much at a movie. So very much at moments I had to take off my glasses. Not because the movie is so sad... but because it is so true, so very real.

The movie is (despite the subject matter) a comedy, based on the true life story of a 27 year old diagnosed with a severe and rare form of spinal cancer. It describes his struggle to face up to the fact that, even though he is a non-smoker, even though he runs, even though he lives a healthy lifestyle (except, perhaps, for the nail biting...), he may be dying. The chances of survival are 50/50, which as his optimistic friend tells him the odds are in his favour if he were gambling.

But cancer is not just about surviving. It is about having and living with the cruel knowledge that your days may be numbered, which may make you want to live life to the fullest, or make you want to die ever so quickly quickly and painlessly. Cancer is about fighting with life for life, about trying to escape  despair and death, and about all the sickness, fatigue, lethargy, about throwing up over a toilet bowl late at night, hair loss, emotional anguish and fears that accompanies every chemo as you limbo and languish between life or death...

At one point, the protagonist locks himself and screams, and screams, and screams while banging his hands and head against the driving wheel like a madman. I closed my eyes and allowed the tears to flow so naturally, so effortlessly...  Because I know, this invisible yet debilitating and often deadly disease has so much power over your mind, over your body that it is maddening... I've seen it in my mum, I've seen it in dad...

Numbness, anger, rejection, frustration, despair... these are things a shrink will tell you are "perfectly normal" emotions to have. The shrink will tell you to let them out, will tell you it's all part of the process of 'dealing with it' and healing. But the feelings, emotional pains and outbursts of a person faced with the knowledge that he may not be around much longer  cannot be labelled, charted, categorised or noted in some scientific research for study and discussion. It is patients we are talking about, human beings with hopes and dreams, plans and promises made to loved ones. How can anyone possibly feel what the patient is feeling, let alone even try to comfort and console the person?

"You'll feel better and don't worry and this is all fine and it's not," the main character points out at one point. Do half lies hurt or help more than perhaps telling someone straight in the face the truth that you will die? Life and death, lies and the truth, anger and appreciation, being optimistic and being pessimistic... Often there is but two possibilities, 50/50 if you will, and it is up to you to choose to believe or indulge in either.  "You can't change your situation. The only thing that you can change is how you choose to deal with it..."
 
Cancer is not just about the patient, for it is a dreadful illness that touches and hurts the lives and hearts of family and friends. The pain of a mother who has to see a child suffer is immeasurable, and having to see your loved one battle the side-effects of chemo and being so helpless to take away the pain and nausea is extremely testing and at times simply too, too much to handle. How can you help alleviate the suffering? How hard must you pray so that even the heavens and gods will be moved? How deeply and intensely must you make a  wish so that the tumour will stop growing, stop multiplying, so that the emotional and physical fatigue on your loved one's face will simply, miraculously one day just go away..?

The many scenes at the hospital were simply too much for me to bear... The corridors filled with cancer patients and sobbing relatives, the chemo ward with faux leather armchairs and IV drips, the intimidating CT scan machines, the colourful mural and paintings in vain attempts to brighten up the drab heaviness of the cancer ward... Even now, as the images replay in my head, I am brought to tears. Louder now that I am away from the ears of the faceless public, sobbing more visibly now that I am away from the concerned, sympathetic eyes of my friends (especially of my ex...).

Why did I become so emotional? Why did tears just flow and flow and flow seemingly incessantly whenever I saw the cancer ward with its pale patients with bald heads? Why did I start trembling when the doctor pointed to the picture of a large lump pressing against the spinal column? My face became soaked and salted, my nose kept on running and sniffing. I had to swallow hard and grind my teeth together to numb the pain the images invoked inside...

There was only one word that echoed...

Mum...
Mum...
Mum...

The spinal cancer in the movie reaches a point where surgery is the only option. An extremely risky operation, that if unsuccessful will have severe consequences on the patient's chance of recovery and survival. It was a movie, but all too real, all too close to my heart. In those final moments, as he sat in bed and said goodbye to his father and mother, I just could not continue watching. I rested my head on the wall, closed my eyes and cringed. It simply felt like such a raw premonition of what may one day happen with mum...

Would I make it home to hold her, hug her, to tell her I love her so very, very much no matter what happens? Would I be able to hold my tears in? Would I be able to calmly sit and wait, and wait, and wait for the surgeon to come out and reveal the news...? There were no answers but just tears, the incessant, liberating yet painful feel and flow warm tears streaking down both my cheeks.

The movie was not  just the (perhaps much dramatised and sanitised) story of one young man and his fight and triumph against cancer. It was, despite my tears, a beautiful movie, and, again despite my crying, one I do not regret watching. True, touching, perhaps somewhat too Hollywoodistic in some of the portrayals and the ending, but still beautiful and very accurately depicts the life, struggles, conflicts and precious little moments of bonding and laughing that cancer patients, family and friends go through on this difficult, difficult search for recovery and hope.

However illusive the search, there must be hope, however hopeless the prospect of recovery, there must be hope. Because without hope, what is life worth living for, what is life worth dying for?

Perhaps some will watch 50/50 and laugh at the hilarity of some of the situations in this self-proclaimed comedy... indeed, in the face of adversity, if you cannot laugh, you will just cry.
Perhaps the movie will also touch people and make people realise what really matters in life, something few people ever really realise because they do not face death, because they consciously or not choose to close their eyes to dying. Life is not just moments of laughter and happiness, even though we must never forget how to enjoy precious little moments. Life is about being with the people you love and care about most, about standing together and standing strong while trying to pull through those tough and testing lessons. Life is about family, friends, and treasuring those precious moments together.

Because sometimes, all too soon, all too suddenly, all too unwantedly, the people who matter most in our lives may at any moment be taken away from us.