The surgery

I prepared myself mentally and emotionally for the surgery. For many years I had been on therapy with a psychologist and it was there where I spoke about my fears and nightmares crudely. I cried a lot during those times and I was very scared. Despite this, I tried to fill myself with positive energy and strength to face the surgery.

In this context I decided to celebrate... Celebrate life in present time without thinking about the future. I invited my friends to a party in my house. I called it the “pre-surgery party”. We danced, listened to music, laughed and celebrated that we were together and fine “right here, right now”. It wasn’t denial; it was an instinct I always have to enjoy life every moment.

The date of July 19th 2011 at dawn I was at the hospital with my parents and brother, waiting to be taken into the operating room. As it’s typical in my family, we took it with humor. That made the wait easier to endure.

I got into the operating room literally trembling in fear. It was supposed to be a quick and easy procedure, but it ended being more complicated and longer. Since the moment I woke up I was in a hell of pain. With the little breath I had (my left lung had to be collapsed during surgery and in the following days it got back to it’s normal size and function), I kept crying and begging for more painkillers, until they couldn’t give me more since I was given morphine and they couldn’t raise the dose.

Those first 24 hours post surgery were the most frightening and physically painful of my whole life. I cried in pain and my cherished family and friends did the impossible to calm me down. The power of love made it possible and they gave me strength to start recovering.

I spent 7 days in hospital, surrounded by all my beloved ones. I recovered at such speed that even doctors where surprised. This stubborn and obstinate Capricornian showed the benefits of such characteristics. I couldn’t take care of myself during my recovery, so as I lived alone I moved on to my parents house.

I had to concentrate in getting better while we waited for the biopsy results. It took a long time to be ready and at last the worst suspicion was confirmed. I had an Epithelial Mesothelioma in my left pleura. In other words, cancer.

The upside of it was that I didn’t have any symptoms of the disease and that it was a very strange type of tumor, of slow growth. The downside was that because it was a strange type there were just a few possible treatments. Science didn’t know as much about as it does about other types of cancers. Doctors couldn’t guess how long I had been living with this tumor and how many more years I could live.

>> Chapter 05: The treatment