Finally home

Twelve hours after arriving in Taiwan, I finally went home. Beleaguered, my heart and eyelids feeling heavy, I am in need of sleep. Deep sleep. Not sleep of twenty minutes or so interrupted by wandering thoughts, frightening images, or the sound of mum coughing and moving about in the hospital bed next to me.

So much has happened over the span of twelve hours. The image of mum, bed-ridden, unable to do much by herself is hard to reconcile with how I left her just two months ago... energetic, vocal and reluctant to accept help from others. My presence makes a difference, I hope... my presence, my smile, my calm I hope makes a little difference to her long, long journey to recovery.

Details of the past two days were slowly pieced together as the day unfolded. My aunt (mum's youngest sister) stayed patiently waiting outside the operation room for 14 hours yesterday. Only at nine in the evening did they wheel mum out and into the neurosurgery intensive care unit. When I arrived at twenty past midnight, my aunt finally had the chance to go home and sleep. For two days she has not properly slept on a bed, and only just laid down on the narrow foldaway bed/chair. I used that same bed/chair last night and tried to sleep, and remembered the last time I used one of those was almost four years ago when mum first began doing chemotherapy. Four years (or so) later, I lay on the same type of bed/chair and stared up at the white ceiling of the intensive care unit, listening to the sound of snoring, the sound of mum breathing laboriously through the oxygen tube... Four years have almost past, and here I am in the same hospital, under very different circumstances of course, but it just felt ironic, terribly, terribly ironic. You would believe time takes you far, but sometimes you end up at the same place with the same people, and that realisation feels like a heart-warming, sometimes spine-tingling, dejavu.

The surgeon who operated on mum came by in the morning to check up on her. Everything looks alright, and mum could flex her fingers and thumbs and clench her hands, which is a test to see whether she has regained control over her limbs. I took the doctor to the side and asked him about the surgery. He was perhaps in his early thirties, pale skinned, radiant with energy and compassion. The surgery was a success, for they removed the tumour that had almost completely encased section C-7 of the spine. They operated on two sides, on the back and also on the front. On the back of the spinal column, a tumour lump as large in surface area as three NT$10 coins (around 10cm in length and 5cm in width) was removed. On the front, "dark matter" as large as one NT$10 coin was removed. They had to cut away part of the spinal column, and replace the rotted away part with metallic pins and support to keep the spine stable. Unfortunately, the  "dark matter" had spread lower down the spine to section C-8, but that could not be dealt with, not now...

"There are other cancerous areas that need to be dealt with", the surgeon said, and my heart sank when I heard that. The surgery is not the cure all of her illness, for the cancer still remains. The surgery was crucial only to ensure the tumour growing on the spine does not further damage nerves and cause her paralysis, so that does not mean mum is in the clear. But for now the most important is for mum to rest and recover and for the deep wounds to heal. When mum was turned to the side for a moment, I could see bandaging extending from the top of her neck to the middle of her back. And on the front, close to the throat was yet another extensively bandaged area. "Spinal chord operations are perhaps the most difficult and life threatening," the doctor said, "She is fortunate that she did it when she did. And she is fortunate she still has control of her limbs!" I thanked the doctor again and again. Just as he was about to walk away, he gave me a pat on the shoulder: "Take good care of her..." I will try... I will try.

My uncle (mum's oldest brother) came in the morning with his wife, rushing up from the south. An old colleague, someone who during the last few chemotherapy sessions has come to keep mum company and cook for her, also came. She starting tearing almost instantly seeing mum lying there . "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you cover things up?" Just days earlier, they were together, traveling and enjoying hot springs together. I imagine that auntie felt terribly guilty, for mum fell the same night that they parted, and the very next day her sores got so bad that she was beginning to lose control of her limbs. "You shouldn't be like this. You should not be afraid to ask people for help. You always think you're troubling people, and that makes people worry about you more."  Like mother, like son, I guess...

I informed brother of the latest, and passed the phone to mum. "Why are you crying? I'm alright, don't cry..." Mum had to comfort brother, whom I could hear on the phone was worried sick and sniffing. Later I spoke to him privately and told him not to worry too much. "I'm here now, and [our] aunt is here too. There are so many people around and so many people who are wishing her speedy recovery. Be strong, for mum..." Again, I was so composed, so calm I amazed myself. When my cousin asked me whether I had cried, it was then that I realised again that I had not at all. Where did this calm, this surprising source of strength come from? The support of dear friends far, far away, the wellwishes and prayers of so many who are thinking of me, I would imagine... I hope this strength will last, will carry me forward and onward in the days and weeks ahead...