A Month Of Seasons
I remember that moment like it was yesterday. I’d been waiting for that phone call and it saved me from a workshop session that I was struggling to make head or tail off. There were missed calls from my surgeon and he wanted me to call him back as soon as possible. I figured my results were ready.
I made myself to the nearby bar at the Lake Victoria Serena in Uganda and asked a bartender for a pen and paper. I called my surgeon back and started taking notes as he revealed my results. I wanted to remember every detail of what I was being told. I needed to make sure I had my facts right before I told my family and friends what had been discovered. Plus, I needed to cross-check with Dr Google, we all do that! My L5 vertebrae was still fractured (this had initially been discovered five months before), another vertebra had become worse and lesions had been found along my spine. For some reason, I pictured these lesions to look like leeches. I was introduced to pulmonary tuberculosis and multiple myeloma. I was ordered not to exercise nor lift anything heavy and to put on my waist brace. For the past five months, I’d always had it with me. Funny thing is, that morning, I felt a little off and opted not to exercise and now I was being told not to lift a finger. I was told to make my way not just to Nairobi but to the hospital by that evening. They would be expecting me.
I was scared but also strangely relieved. I was one step closer to knowing why my lower back was out of sorts. That day I started receiving lots of kindness. From colleagues now turned friends, airport staff in Entebbe and Nairobi and from family and friends when I was on home turf.
Safely back in Nairobi and at the Aga Khan, the battery of tests and the waiting game began. I was prodded and poked and slowly started getting used to being referred to as the patient. I soon became a nuisance to the security guard at the entrance to our wing, thanks to the flurry of visitors. In true Kevo style, nurses, orderlies, lab techs and radiographers, soon became friends. I didn’t know how long I was going to be the patient.
Hospitals are like prisons as they both run on routine. First thing tea before sunrise (don’t understand why), then you welcome the young trainee doctors on their rounds, then try to sleep but it’s already breakfast time, then poo, shower, give the first of nth sample for the day, chill, prepare for the morning visitors, lunch, sleep, tea, welcome the afternoon visitors, dinner and then the silence of the night. That silence forces you to face your illness. Hospital nights are long, lonely and unpredictable. This is when you recognise either your mortality, humanity or fragility. You either wallow, weep or wait. And after you’re done with all that, you sleep.
After a week or so, it was ‘Hello Multiple Myeloma’. This news was broken to me by Prof Riyat, the oncologist, another doctor and a nurse. Cancer had been confirmed. CANCER. I wasn’t entirely shocked. Well, every time I was taken for a scan in the radiology department, the staff there were really gentle with the terms that they used to describe their investigation. The term growth, mass or tissue was used with sensitivity. So when the C-word was let of the bag, I knew. I remember the nurse, Irene Boke, placing a hand on mine, looking into my eyes and saying sorry. I was now the myeloma patient and not just the patient anymore. We now had answers for the months of pain and tension in my lower back. And that answer was cancer.
As this new normal set in, so did the guilt. Guilt that I was putting my family through this. I had just finished my probation period at my new job and was worried about how this new episode would be received. The cost of treatment worried me and the started wondering where the money was going to come from. Yes, I had medical insurance, but that doesn’t last very long with a cancer diagnosis. I was constantly doing the math. How I could stretch my savings and various pension contributions. I didn’t want to saddle my family with debt too. This gnawed on me as much as my diagnosis. It was only when my family reassured me that a way would be found that I started focusing on getting better.
When I was alone, my brain was all over the place. In addition to the guilt, I remember I was constantly berating myself. Overthinking things is dangerous. I was also worried about the damage that had been done to my spine. Would I be at risk of paralysis? Would I be able to exercise again? Would I still be able to live an independent life? How would I respond to chemotherapy? Worse still how would I be able to afford chemo? Costs and effect!
Cancer had it out for our family again. However, I remember this is when fight kicked in. I was not going to let this disease win yet again. I was going to fight not just for myself, but for my favourite aunt who had recently died of breast cancer. This was not going to be how my story ended. I had to come to terms with the fact that multiple myeloma has no cure but it can be managed. I had to focus on the treatment course that had been prescribed. I was going to fight this. I remember people telling me that fighting cancer was a mind thing. I smiled politely but in my head, I had no clue what they meant. Me, I just knew this shit has to be beaten. The penny eventually did drop on the mind over matter thing.
There are moments from this time four years ago that will be etched into my memory. The initial tears that came with the shock; the kindness that came in from various quarters; my first reaction to chemotherapy, and how beaten and exhausted it left me. There are moments of loneliness shared between the sickness and the self. The recognition that life will throw numerous surprises at you. My human-ness laid bare and how strong the instinct to survive is. I am eternally grateful that I learnt how the strength of the mind is vital in fighting for the body.
Four years on, I’m not the same individual that walked into the Aga Khan Hospital and neither am I the same Kevo who was wheeled out. October will be a bittersweet month for me for the rest of my days. It will take me down to the memories spent at the hospital, but every October since then will be a milestone to reflect on my life and the new journey it has taken.
I have this perennial sense of gratitude to life. Coupled with the recognition of the singularity of this life. There is the admission of the unpredictability of life. But there has been the appreciation of the now and the importance of seasons.
And how is my health, you may ask? I am in a good space, currently. I’m taking in my daily dose of life with its good and bad pills and living in the season.
