‘CANcer’ the word itself has ‘can’ in it. Proving nothing is impossible to achieve. Let it be just a sun sign by joining hands together on 4th of February, world cancer day.
And this is what Ms Babita Ahuja, a patient of metastatic ovarian cancer did, fought with all zeal to overcome the monster which had started eating her up.
One day during winters of 2010, she felt a sudden pain in her right side of the body. The pain was severe and started without notice. Unable to bear the pain one of her friends advised her to go to the emergency room of the hospital.
After all the tests, doctors received the results of getting a blood test and saw that the white blood cell count was extremely lofty and elevated. The doctors and the other staff members were alarmed and immediately asked out for the gynaecologist of the hospital. She came after studying all about her medical history. However less than hour after arriving at the hospital, she was in a surgery. The doctor told that they had to remove one of her ovaries which had been badly damaged and infected.
As a bolt from the blue, the gynaecologist called her to inform that the pathology report had come, stating that the tissue was cancerous. She got the shock of her life and yet right away when you hear such a news, you start digesting it and thinking about the next steps, start digesting which is exactly what she did.
Not able to decide what next to do, she called one of her friends and together went to a surgeon who performed a laparoscopic hysterectomy and determined the stage of cancer as 1C ovarian cancer. So she was further recommended 3 cycles of chemotherapy which lead loss of her hair and weight.
Yet she continued to fight against this monster. After this, she felt better and this celebrated summers with her family.
However, in September 2011 she again felt a strange yet same feeling in her body but now on the left side. She thought might be she had a urinary infection but the scan report left everyone’s eyes and mouth wide open, cancer had returned and now had wrapped around her left ureter.
The same surgeon who did the hysterectomy now removed as much as tumour as possible and also had put a stent to connect the bladders and the kidney. After the surgery, she even saw another surgeon who advised her a CT Scan. But as a bad omen never leaves your side, the tumour had returned. The cancer was extremely barbaric.
Even after few chemotherapies with second-line medications, cancer had spread its legs to the liver. Ovarian cancer had spread injuriously to the parts of her liver. She was left weak with no energy even to move her leg. It was like each day was just about surviving and nothing more. Her focus was just getting to the next day and the day after that.
A senior doctor took the charge of the case and his goal was to get her back, so she was recommended to have chemotherapy with some different drugs, prior doctors had avoided because of the side effects. After the chemotherapy and the radiation part showed no evidence and after few months the scan results were the same
Coincidentally it was on 4th February 2012 that the last report of CT scan was seen which proved the absence of cancer in the patient.
‘Hope is what holds you together.’
It’s been 5 years and it’s hard to believe what she had been through. Today her energy is restored and her life is back to normal. The experience of last 5 years has changed her indelibly and now she appreciates life more than ever. It’s the slightest ray of hope that led her through all of this.
As Baruch Spinoza rightly points out – ‘There is no hope unmingled with fear, No fear unmingled with hope.’
So on 4th February, the world cancer day, let’s get together and show that improving cancer is not beyond us. ‘Cancer’ had started the fight and now we all together will end it.
