It

This is "it". The piece of flesh growing inside mum's bowels. The view is from the endoscope conducted around twelve days ago. I saw this in that split second when I had a glimpse at the screen, and remember I said I just had a bad feeling. Something intuitively told me it is bad. And "it" is bad...

Visible is a lump on the wall of the intestines. This is about the middle section, and actually the tumour is not growing from inside the intestines, as I imagined, but growing from outside in. It came from elsewhere, and I suspect it originated from the ascending colon, where mum was first diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer. Over the years, despite a section of the colon being cut off, despite dozens of chemo treatments, the cancer came back, with a vengeance so to speak. A lymph node in that section of the body has been known to be infected for at least one year or so. And once a lymph is infected, it does not take much For cancerous cells to be spread around the body through the blood vessels that connect to the node.

The black and white MRI image, as the doctor explained, shows an abnormal lump to the centre right of the image (in military positioning, Located between twelve o'clock and one o'clock.) That is not supposed to be there. Whereas the wall of the duodenum (small intestines) are supposed to be only a thin squiggly black line (centre right corner, between two and three o'clock), the lump shows that the walls in that region have become abnormally fat.

The tumour is compressing on part of the horizontal colon, compressing on the exit of the stomach to the duodenum, and is dangerously close to the pancreas and spleen. Dangerously close, because though the doctor did not confirm whether there is spreading to the latter two organs, the chances are with time, and it does not take much time, that is bound to happen.

"Treatment... Is it possible?" I knew the answer, but I needed to hear it again, from the third doctor I have spoken to in recent weeks about mum's condition. And the answer was clear.

Mum did not accompany me into the consultation room when the doctor I requested to speak to came to pick me up. "The past few weeks have been a rise and fall of emotions. I had hope before, but now I have really fallen to the bottom of the valley" A local saying for being or feeling the lowest of the lowest. I have rarely heard mum describe her feelings so articulately, even though I know from the expression on her face, from the way she stares into empty space, I can feel she is deeply disappointed, deeply disillusioned.

Yes, there was so much hope before. We thought once the spinal tumour had been removed, then we could stop all treatment and she could rehabilitate and eventually regain her health so she can live out her life as she wants to... But who would have known, who could have imagined that within a month or so of doing so well at rehab and returning home, the complications with eating kicked in. And for so long we were so fooled into believing it was all just due to steroids and the sideeffects of too many pills she has been taking in. Who would have thought as we were dealing with a large lump in the spine, a devious cousin of that lump managed to incubate and start growing and getting stronger and angrier under our noses without us realising it...

Mum did not want to know or see the full extent of the "damage" inside. She more or less knows, I guess, for it is her own body, her own discomfort and her own intestines that is often gargling so loudly as if they were trying to tell us, warn us something is amiss there.

I came face to face with the cancer, and it did not look so menacing to the untrained eye. It is part of the body, part of the same system and feeds off of all the nutrients that healthy, "necessary" cells need to sustain themselves. Cancer, like all sorts of lifeforms, need oxygen and nutrients. Like all cells, its purpose is to multiply and grow and spread. Its life is

[half way writing this next to mum's bed, mum suddenly woke up from her sleep, grabbed a bag and began vomiting, again and again until the see through plastic bag was almost half full... I hugged mum as I helped her up... Again I felt how thin she has become, how much thinner she is getting from the day I saw her when I returned home almost three months ago... My heart ached and felt so sorry. I could not do anything! I could only hug her and stroke her hand... Pat her back... Damn you, cancer... Damn you...]

Its life is killing, killing healthy cells bit by bit by bit until whole organs fail, until whole systems become dysfunctional, until the entire body can no longer sustain life itself... and dies.

I thanked the doctor, and knew what I needed to know. I confirmed what I needed to confirm, and that is mum's condition is truly beyond treatment. Why even attempt to treat something that cannot be treated, and is even less likely to be treated with mum's declining health and inability to eat properly?

Now I realise, after seeing the images, after the doctor explained to me mum's condition, after hearing perhaps the loudest and clearest expression of despair and hopelessness coming from mum, I must be prepared...

Before I still thought perhaps there is hope yet, but now I know, perhaps I have known for a while, that we must accept and face the realities, however painful, however torturous they may be.