The treatment

With the diagnosis on my hand I went to see an oncologist to start a treatment that could save my life. He proposed to start with 3 cycles of chemotherapy, one every 3 weeks. Not only I had a strange type of cancer but also it had spread all around my pulmonary artery and aorta, making it impossible to operate on. The idea with the chemo was to reduce the size of the tumor for surgery.

I felt in a rollercoaster or in a dark tunnel were I couldn’t see the exit. My only choice was to surrender to uncertainty.

Each chemotherapy session lasted 6 hours. The drugs are extremely harmful and end ruining the veins; therefore, the doctors put a portacath on my chest. It’s a titanium gadget placed below the skin through which they provide the drugs, preserving the arm’s veins.

Once more, my family and friends were there to hold my hand. Since one person at a time could stay with me during chemo sessions, they would take shifts in order to keep me company. We would talk about happy things during those hours at the hospital just to make the process easier.

The attitude with which one faces hard times makes all the difference. We can’t change reality, but we can face it with a negative attitude or put the best in ourselves in order to face it in the most constructive way. Try to learn something positive out of it, to connect with the deepest and most spiritual essence of oneself. Reach those inner and unknown areas of oneself that makes us stronger and understand, in the whole meaning of it, that we are just passing by on life. Nobody is free of suffering, but even in hard times we can have moments of deep happiness.

At the same time that the chemotherapy treatment was weakening my health (ironic, but true), as a consequence of the terrible side effects, and my physical pain was increasing day after day, week after week, month after month, I was becoming spiritually stronger. It was amazing how despite my weight loss and all the negative side effects everybody perceived a bright aura around me and saw me full of light. I am touched when I remember the words of someone who didn’t know I was ill and told me I looked extremely happy and shiny, as he never saw me before. What he saw on me was my spiritual awakening, my desire to be healthy again and my acceptance of the reality I had at that time.

I never thought, “Why me?” On the contrary, I thought, “Why not me? What can I learn from this?” From the beginning I took it humbly and I never thought cancer as an enemy. I felt hate didn’t have place in this battle. My healing had to be by means of love and positive thinking. I never gave up. Of course I had a bad time and suffered, but love and the powerful energy of my circle of love had the force of a hurricane. The true liberation came to me when I understood I had to let go. Let go on everything on which I didn’t have any control, let go the inevitable, dive into the experience without resisting the flow. What a relief to realize all these! I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. But by deeply understanding that we are all going to die, that no one can buy time and that there’s no control over all this, I lost a great amount of fear. I was determined not to think about how long I was going to live (what a waste of time it would be!) but instead, to live thoroughly and focused on what’s really important to me, every day of my life.

When people told me that, despite what I was going through, they saw me glittering I ironically answered, “That’s because cancer suits me very well”. Behind the joke there was a big truth. By means of cancer, life gave me a second chance... to learn, to wake up, to reorganize my scale of values, to deepen my bond of love with my family and friends. All of us had a second chance through my illness. Not always life offers this gift. We were lucky.

>> Chapter 06: Bad news, time to get hold of the situation