I Sing for Joy at the Work of Your Hands

My test result came and guess what?? Okay don't guess, I'll tell you. The lesion on my abdominal area shows "no signs typical to melanoma" or any "sign of malignancy." A heartfelt thank you to every person out there that prayed for me.

I'm sure no one prayed for me about this next win, but I did a lot of praying for this - the Google Football League! And looks like someone's prayers are being listened to. About time too (I just have to add that because I feel like God has been ignoring me and ALL my prayers for quite a while).

The Tribe won!

Here's an exuberant us after our win with our trophy. And look closely, because you'll see I have a second trophy in my hand ;) Does it look like a 'Best Player of the series' trophy to you? :)

It is, and that is mine! All mine! Yes, I won the best player award - believe it or not. I still can't quite believe it myself. (Caribou, Zoram lam ai chu ka awh zo rih khawp e haha. Commentator te pawhin 'All the way from Mizoram' an ti vel dap dap reng mai! :))

And now you can also say I was famous (for a day) because a thousand plus people ate a dish named after me for lunch :P The good Macavity who never have sambar at lunch had a bowl full of it just because it bore my name and she's an awesome friend.

I played defense, but I took over the goalie role when the games get to penalty shootout stages. And I, without any shame, will include this picture of me scoring a goal during the penalties because I'm so freaking proud of myself.

The only downside to all of these is that I now have the ugliest knees in the world. Scarred, scabby, just generally very unfeminine knees.

And on top of that, just when my battle wounds were about to heal, I made this really bad decision to go water surfing last weekend and I wound up with raw knees all over again.
But I think I sort of got to instructor-stage goodness :D And I would do it again in a heartbeat even if it meant even uglier knees.

Heh! Excuse the extreme modesty. It's hard to stay humble because I'M ON FIRE! YEAH BABY!

All this joyfulness aside, I have to go for another PET CT scan tomorrow to have yet another node (on my iliac region this time) checked out. Same thing again, we need to know if they are metastases of the melanoma.

It's getting to be a bit tiring, and sometimes I'm just downright sick of it all. I think I've only had about two weekends this year that I didn't spend some time at the hospital. But you know, even though every test is always frightening, overall I'm not too worried. I think God has always given me enough good to tide me over the bad. And whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well with my soul (Well I'm only trying still...)

And because the God on the mountain is still God in the valley, and the God of the good times is still God in the bad times.

The God of the day is still God in the night.

Dr Doom and Soccer and Life in General

"I'm afraid there's no hope. There's nothing that can be done. You'll have to start preparing yourself..." This is what my new oncologist told me on my first meeting with him 2 weeks ago.

After looking at all my test results and proclaiming "This is not good, this is not good at all" after looking at every sheet of paper, he told me that if this mass in my cervical region (called the pouch of Douglas) wasn't operable, there would be no hope for me.

"I'm sorry.." long dramatic pause, looking at me sympathetically. I think he half expected me to burst into tears but when he saw no tears forthcoming, he continued "I'm really very sorry."

We've been monitoring this lesion since we found out about it last year, and after a few failed tests we haven't been able to confirm if it is cancerous or just a harmless fibroid. All my previous doctors have been very positive since my nodes are all clear, and technically the melanoma would have to travel through my nodes before they can reach my abdominal area.

When I asked him why he was treating it like it was a confirmed case of metastasic melanoma when there's been no confirmative report, "It most likely is" he said. It was almost like he wanted it to be.

I was far from crying. Of course, it's scary to hear words like that, but I was too angry to focus too much on fear. How can anyone tell you that there is no hope? It is my choice, my decision to keep hoping or not to. No one should ever tell someone that there is no hope because hoping is a personal right, one that we can choose to cling to even on our death beds.

As I sat there, listening to all these dark predictions, all I could think of was how off everything seemed. "I feel like a million dollars, and yet this is what the doctor is telling me. How can I be dying when I feel so great?" It may sound a bit dense, but cancer or not, when you feel so healthy and ...alive, the thought of dying just can't really sink in. Even when this fancy doctor in this fancy hospital with all his fancy degrees tell you that there is no hope for you, your mind just refuses to believe the things you hear.

Anyway, Doctor Doom ordered a battery of tests and appointments with a radiologist (because he was positive I needed radiation therapy) and an oncological surgeon.

To cut a long story short, the senior surgeon was angry that a big deal was made out of something that was possibly nothing. He canceled all the tests that Doom ordered, and asked me to do another ultrasound guided FNAC (this is the only thing that's made me cry so far by the way, the pain is freaking intense).

I will get my test result on Friday. I feel very positive about everything. Hopefully, things will not be as bad as Doctor Doom predicted.

Well that's all on the dying side. On the living side, I am awesome! :) I signed up for one of the girls football team for the Google Football League. My team is called The Tribe, and guess who's captain? :) And it is only appropriate that a true tribal captains a team called The Tribe :P

That's me, #1, winning all the tosses for my team.

We've played two matches so far. Lost one 1-0, and I'll admit we were not very good losers. We sulked and remained dour-faced for the rest of the day.

A good lecture from our beloved coach -

And we won our second match 3-0!

Football is healthy. And I don't mean just physically. Believe me, when you're out on the ground engaged in full-out combat with your enemy, cancer is the last thing on your mind.

Love is also healthy :-)