FEBRUARY 12 — By the time you read this, I will probably be waiting for or will likely have finished my last “ordinary” chemotherapy session.
The past few days I have been briefly entertaining the notion of just not going.
I know it isn’t an option unless I want to die a prolonged and painful death but it’s hard not to feel daunted by the many treatments that await me.
It’s also really hard to isolate myself from the state of current affairs — the mad leader of the free world, the neverending unrest in the Middle East, the worrying state of public healthcare in Malaysia among other things.
With the weak ringgit and the headwinds in the global economy, I have to face the possibility of my medications costing more.
Worrying, however, won’t change things.
All I can do right now is just show up for all my many medical appointments as much as I don’t want to go.
I have been doing my best to be a trooper about things but the treatments are tiring and take up so much of my time, while I also keep getting reminded that I need to watch my diet and exercise just to survive said treatments.
Last week I had to block an old acquaintance on Facebook for spamming my comments with antivax conspiracy theories, vegetarianism promotions and accusations of me being unable to “accept the truth”.
Absolute strangers keep yelling at me online that our immune systems have been decimated by the Covid vaccine/Big Pharma/seed oils/the Jews/sugar and that I should start believing ivermectin will cure me of my cancer.
I love the internet but seriously, it has done too good a job at spreading misinformation and harming the critical thinking processes of too many people to count.
Embracing the ephemeral
Being chronically ill really puts your mental health to the test and I wish we put as much effort into mental health resources as we do fat shaming Malaysians.
Now it’s Penang being the target, being told they have the fattest people in the country.
Penang doesn’t even have commuter trains and driving in the state is enough to raise anyone’s blood pressure, so can you really blame them for finding solace in their very good food?
Truth be told, if I had access to authentic Penang char kuey teow within walking distance, I would eat it every day and hope heart disease kills me before cancer does.
People think it’s a measure of character, to not be plagued by anxiety or some other mental health disorder, when it’s really a combination of luck and getting the right treatment and support.
How am I not lying on the floor right now paralysed by the state of things?
It helps that I got diagnosed with clinical depression with a side of PTSD in my 20s and that I had a few decades to figure a lot of things out.
Kids these days don’t have that luxury.
Hospitals are full, therapy is expensive and the income divide hasn’t actually gotten any smaller.
We take for granted all the little near-misses in life and easily forget that even the slightest deviation from the norm could mean the difference between getting home or getting hit by a lorry.
Like that time I stopped to remove a pebble from my sandal and narrowly missed getting run over by a neighbour who lost control of his car, jumping the curb onto the sidewalk — where I would have been if a little stone hadn’t annoyed me so.
Yes, things are bad now for way too many people but if I can’t lie down and decide to die then neither should you.
As imperfect as life is and as daunting as current events are, I still believe in living.
Yes, in a month or so, nasi lemak and other spicy things will be off-limits because my immunotherapy will kill my tastebuds.
My bones and joints will hurt, some days like now I won’t want to eat but will have to shovel down food anyway, I will have to explain for the umpteenth time to the revolving staff at my nearby clinic that I have cancer and need them to stop asking me questions and give me my immunity boosting shot already.
This month, however, is my birthday month so I will have cake, I will play games on my PlayStation, I will laugh at the TikToks and memes my friends send me and perhaps I will go hunt down some tiramisu (again) if I feel sad.
Funny story: I was very sad last week and decided I needed tiramisu and fortunately Common Feed at Uptown has a Friday special, where you pay RM25 and you can scoop as much of the stuff as your greedy little heart desires.
As always I’m not being paid for this shoutout. I just desperately need the restaurant to stay open so I can keep having my sad girl tiramisu Fridays.
I end this with another grateful shoutout to my sponsors aka those who donated to my Ko-fi (which you can still do here).
The past week I fantasised about closing down my page and cancelling donor subscriptions but the hike in drug prices means I will still have my tip jar open for a while longer or at least until the government decides that maybe letting the free market dictate life saving drug prices isn’t the best idea.
Find out next week if my mental state survived the chemotherapy I did not want to do. Until then, please enjoy some tiramisu on my behalf.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
