(First published April 2, 2025)

APRIL 2 — Of course, the one time I go to a mall without my cane, I fall so spectacularly I can only remember rolling around and somehow cutting up both my knees.

My mask was loose and instead of stopping to adjust it I kept walking and alas, I keep forgetting that lesson I should know by now — cancer makes you a terrible multitasker.

I remember screaming in the parking lot and suddenly a whole bunch of people coming to help.

Now I wish I could say I was more gracious but in reality the only thing I could do was lie on my side, groaning, not wanting to get up because it bloody hurt.

Fortunately I wasn’t alone and my companion got my bloodied knees disinfected and bandaged though I think, despite the bruises and blood, my pride was what hurt the most.

Perhaps the Fates are trying to hammer it into my skull that my mental resilience does not make up for my needing to take extra care and accept my new normal with grace.

I try to but sometimes I am just overwhelmed with everything else I need to juggle and having to deal with a mountain of new stuff.

My hands are stiff and numb from nerve damage so I now use a TENS device, which is basically zapping them with a current to lessen the pain and slow atrophy.

My bathroom now has a shower chair because I have almost keeled right over from losing my balance, and my spare room now has dumbbells because despite my desire to stay in bed and be a forever noodle, alas, I have to spend time doing strength training to not lose more muscle mass than I already have.

If I could I would not move from my bed, just cocoon myself in my blankets, stop struggling to do all the things I am supposed to do to stay healthy, to fight off this disease caused by my cells simply going mad.

Then I remember that life is a gift.

So is pain.

Pain tells me my body is working, that it is fighting and trying to hold it together, it reminds me that “Here and now, you are alive” — my favourite Terry Pratchett quote from his book Small Gods.

My immunotherapy pain is so strange and alien to me, moving from one part of my body to the other, never settling in just one place.

At one point it’s my hip then suddenly my knee, then my calf, my back, my bladder, my ankle, my foot, my hands.

They never hurt all at once, seemingly taking turns to vex me, the pain singing in the back of my mind as I try to work or eat or sleep.

It might seem overly stoic or masochistic of me but I don’t take my painkillers until I truly need them, so I just put up with the throbbing pulses of discomfort making their way around my body.

Yes, it hurts but I think about the people who probably hurt more and yet they endure it — the people I see in the hospital each time, old and young, calm or agitated and I think if they can, I can.

All of us in the hospital are just trying to live despite the inconvenience and discomfort of it all and sometimes, I wish I could take that quiet solidarity, the empathy for each other’s pain and put it in a pill for all Malaysians.

Beyond history, beyond creeds, beyond the colour of our skin, the tongues we speak, underneath that all we all bleed and hurt, and we should want the best for each other instead of continually believing the worst.

While I am grateful for the support and kindness shown from people I know as well as absolute strangers, I also understand that I’m lucky.

Lucky to not have to be arguing on the phone with an insurer, to be making appointments with the welfare department or other aid avenues, to not have to hope my circumstances go viral on social media and still the guilt eats at me because no one deserves additional suffering on top of the horrible business of chronic illness.

I read about a young girl whose leukaemia isn’t responding to her cancer treatment, and of a friend’s friend who will need chemotherapy for the rest of her life because her cancer can only be controlled and not (as yet) eradicated.

It is too easy to spiral over the what-ifs, the what-thens and the how-nows but cancer isn’t that simple though right now science says there are only two foods that absolutely, definitely raise your cancer risk, namely alcohol and processed meat.

Yet the only way to truly stave off death is to live.

Thus I dutifully chronicle this long torment, hopeful that this helps someone somewhere or at the very least, makes someone stop putting off that check-up.

In the meantime feel free to buy me a Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/ernamh2202) while I do my best to see silver linings despite all the very annoying clouds.