Monday 9 September 2013

To hold hands...

Her eyes were drooping. People around her were telling things to her but she could barely comprehend what they were. All she realized was that this was another one of her worse days, hopefully not the worst. She would be nauseated for the rest of the day, also vomitting and having a splitting headache. I am only 5 years old, she wondered. Kids her age would still be basking in the summer sun, after all it was their school break. The closest she had gotten to a vacation were through the pictures of her brother when he was her age. The intensity of her sickness increased with each of her visits to this place. She dreaded the room she was about to enter. She was on her way to chemotherapy.

From the time she could remember she had been a patient at this child cancer hospital. She liked the people here. They were nice and always treated her with chocolates. But there was something daunting about the place. For one, she did not like the smell of the place. There were too many kids being carried on wheelchairs and almost all these kids were bald. She wondered why this was so. Every month her parents used to bring her here. She always thought that it was a family ritual just like ordering pizzas on Friday. And yet, this was somehow painful. She had been told that she had leukemia. She had yet to learn the spelling.

Most of these visits resulted in some syringe incident. It was her brother who had stood by her through all these tests and syringes. Though he was just 3 years elder to her, she had never seen a more courageous person. He would salways be there and hold her hands while the nurse took her blood. It is he who held her tighlty when she had nightmares. He completed her school work when she was too tired and ill to finish it herself. He always knew what to get her for her birthdays, Winnie the Pooh being her latest addiction. He was more than a brother to her.

But there had been something bothering everyone at home after a particular hospital visit. She could sense it. As naive as she could be, she posed the question to her brother. This was the first time he was groping for an answer. Somehow his better judgement told him to be honest with her. He told her how the doctor had said that her condition was becoming worse with every passing day and that they should go in for chemotherapy. This meant that she would miss school more often, find herself spending more time in the hospital and feeling eternally tired. But this might prove better for her in the long run. She did not understand much of any of this. All she asked him was, 'Will you still be there holding my hand?'

She reached the radiation room. He let go of her hand. This is where they separated, she knew. After all, this might eventually give her the childhood she had always dreamt about.

She held her Winnie the Pooh tightly and let out a huge sigh. Yes, she was ready for it.

2 comments:

Sreerag said...

Touching. Good stuff!

Anonymous said...

A poignant tale indeed.