The history of the healing

The third course of chemotherapy

I entered the third course of chemo already bald, with a catheter on the other side of my neck and more cheerful than before. It seemed to me that it would last forever. The end of the chemo was somewhere far away, behind the horizon. And to somehow brighten up the waiting time, I began to make a list of things that I would do when I was cured. It turned out that to be happy, I lacked very simple things. For example, walking along the streets and taking pictures of everything, or going to an ice cream parlor. It made me feel better when I thought that I would do all that when I got out of the hospital. Sometimes I wondered what I was going to do with my work when I got out of the hospital, since I was determined to give up web design. But I was trying to get rid of those thoughts, rightly thinking that I would decide on it later.

It turned out that some patients were in that hospital with the eighth or even the tenth course of chemo. I learned that after talking to people at master classes organized by volunteers. One girl was given seven courses of chemo, and only the eighth was decided to be intensive. All four of my courses were intensive. I did not allow the idea that I would have the fifth chemo. I was firmly convinced that four would be enough. Moreover, I already felt better, I limped much less. And the doctors said that I had good results.

Once my husband came to me at about 9 pm. He and my mother got a 24-hour pass to the hospital, so he had such an opportunity. He worked until 7-8 pm, and could not come earlier on working days. That time we went for a walk around the corridors. Then we sat down to rest in the hall. And suddenly we saw some kind of fuss, all the doctors of my department were running back and forth, they didn't even notice us. We realized that something had happened to some patient. And I thought: what a responsibility doctors have around the clock for the lives of so many people! It's one thing when my husband, a programmer, has to stay late at work because something is wrong with the website. And it's another thing when people work after hours because if they go home straight away, a person may die. The next day I found out that a woman had become worse, but they had helped her.

The third chemo was the easiest of all. I even almost didn’t have a stomatitis. Leukocytes still hit rock bottom, but in general, I felt better than after the first and second courses.

I wanted to play the guitar and sing. My husband would not have been allowed to go to the hospital with a guitar, especially on a working day, so he brought a ukulele. I missed it so much! Usually, we sang loudly, but my voice became weak, and my husband tried to sing more quietly. And still, apparently, it was loud. It was funny to watch the orderlies peeping through the glass door of the ward. Playing the ukulele cheers up so much! I had got tired of singing even before my fingers started to hurt since they weren’t used to. My husband arranged ukulele therapy for me about 5 more times.

By that time, almost all my friends had learned from social networks that I had lymphoma. I already didn't mind socializing, and my friends sometimes came to me. Some of them were very busy all the time. I hadn’t been able to meet one my friend for 2 years, but she found the time to come to visit me at the hospital. And I’m grateful to her for this. My former colleague who I almost didn’t communicate with, came and turned out to be a very interesting person. We were both surprised at how many common topics we had. This is how lymphoma can bring people closer together.

I won’t describe you the withdrawal from the chemo in detail. There was nothing new, everything was as the previous 2 times, but it was easier, everything hurt less.

3 days before the new chemistry, I had been allowed to walk again. My friends came to walk me. I held on to them because my legs could barely hold me. Each time we walked longer and longer. We went around the corner of the house, and there were some household outbuildings, a garbage can. I looked at all those things in complete delight: what beautiful multi-colored houses! What a green trash can! The workers were walking with normal healthy faces and without white coats! When I was tired, we sat on benches. Some patients went outside with droppers, which bags hanged on, and smoked! It was just incredible. If they didn't want to recover, then why were they being treated? Why were they lying in the hospital, wasting doctors' time, taking up a place that could be occupied by patients who wanted to live, unlike them?

I really wanted to draw not from photos but from a nature. From the window of the ward there was not a very beautiful view, and I had already drawn everything in the corridor. During the walks I tried to figure out what windows the view was better from. Then I found those windows in the hospital and drew. Sometimes it was difficult to walk a long distance around the hospital because I was tired, also pulling a tripod with droppers in one hand, and carrying drawing in the other. But it was worth it.

One nurse sent me the photos with landscapes of her hometown and asked me to draw something. I decided to practise drawing with watercolor. I made an order in the art shop and asked my husband to get it and bring it to me. The order was also a watercolor paper of about 30x40 cm. I was surprised that the paintings were really good. I painted 10 artworks. They were my first watercolor paintings that I liked. I gave one of them to the nurse as a present.

I discovered the Sims game for myself. I hadn’t liked it before my illness because it kills the time. In the hospital I loved it for this very reason. It was a good way to forget about everything and be deeply engrossed in the game. And when I came out of it, another couple of hours passed, which meant that I became even closer to recovery.