did you know?

My sister went to on a trip to USA and returned with coffee powder and peanuts.

She said, "We get everything else in India. So I got these."

kidneys and cancer

Last night I was at the nephrologist’s clinic and it struck me how different the atmosphere was from when we visit the oncologist.
Cancer is noisy the way renal failure is silent.

Go up to someone, tell them the word cancer. Watch them panic.
Now go up to this person again, and say renal failure. Watch them give you a curious or confused look. Now try saying dialysis. Watch their expression again. Just watch.

***

At the oncologist’s office, it is never quiet. Outpatient departments are noisy. Go on, spend a day at one. You’ll know what I mean.

Cancer day care centres can be the noisiest places in the world. Patients talk to each other. Relatives talk to each other. People just strike up random conversations.

At a hemodialysis centre, people pray. I’m not kidding. They pray. It is quiet. It is crowded but it is quiet. Nobody is really talking to anyone else, although sometimes families that come in together talk amongst themselves. Mine doesn’t. We just sit. Lots of other people just sit as well. Sit. Stare into space. Meet the doctor. Go back home.

***

At the nephrologist’s clinic, I played Guess The Patient with myself. People on dialysis aren’t automatically bald, the way people on chemotherapy are. So you would think this is a more challenging game to play.

The thing is, I am incredibly good at Guess The Patient, and I suspect everyone at the nephrologist’s clinic is good at this game as well.

I can tell who is on dialysis by the way they walk. Yes. Their WALK tells me.

Sigh.

Unbelievable.

***

Maybe the difference is that with chemotherapy you have a plan. Your doctor decides how many cycles of chemotherapy you need; you go through them. You either make it out alive or you don’t. There is a time-frame to this madness, it is definite, and usually, you have a clear idea about how it is going to end. Words and stress collapse into one another and people talk. You can hear the sound of the tension, it is tight, it is rough, it is bursting at the seams, and there is noise.

With dialysis, you float and breathe. There is hope and there isn’t hope.

Dialysis keeps you alive, as long as your kidneys can last. Maybe just a few hours more or just a day more. Or maybe a year. Maybe twenty years. Everything is possible.

I don’t know how this will end, neither do you.

So you reconcile, sit tight and wonder.

Silence is that special space in your head where you imagine the worst and you imagine the best and you sit and watch wide eyed when the two meet and kiss.

hair

In winter, you can’t tell a cancer patient from someone who does not have cancer. Especially if you live in a metropolitan city where monkey caps are equal to fashion statements. Every single year. Year after year.

Also, if you are a man on chemotherapy, in all likelihood, it is going to be impossible to tell you apart from a bald man who is not on chemotherapy. Regardless of the season.  

But maybe not regardless of your religion. Maybe then you have the same experience as women.

Because it isn’t the same for women.

Or is it? 

What if you are a woman who covers her hair because of religious reasons? If you lost your hair, would you still cover your head? Then would you be covering your hair or the fact that you don’t have any?

modern interiors

In the very first house that I lived in, the mosquito nets matched the colours of the bathroom tiles.

This was done on purpose.

how to survive an art gallery if you want to drink the free wine

"Use the word juxtapose. For example if you are looking at a painting of a horse say - I love how the colours of the horse are juxtaposed against the background of the field. Or if you are looking at modern art, just say - I love how the hues of this painting are juxtaposed against each other on the canvass."
-- Abir

love, brains & magic

"You are really stupid when you are in early love. Your IQ drops by several levels."

- My Green Tea Friend

remission

What happens on the day when you finish all your prescribed cycles of chemotherapy and you are still alive?

Does it mean you have been cured?

I wish it was that simple.

Sometimes, cancers return. 

How do you know if the chemotherapy has worked?

It has worked if you are cancer free for x number of years.

X = number of years as declared by your doctor. This number seems to vary with cancer type as far as I can tell.

So we've been told 5 years from today.

In popular cancer language, this waiting game is called - "Remission".

Sounds like a video game, right?

****

And so while you are wondering about that, let me leave you with an incredibly courageous and wonderfully well compiled set of gifs on what a typical chemotherapy day looks like.

Go on, paste this link into your browser's address bar. No pain. No gain. http://thoughtcatalog.com/michelle-lamont/2013/05/super-fun-gif-guide-to-surviving-a-day-of-chemotherapy/