Sh(e)aring My Sheep

I want to show you all my latest artwork, my masterpiece, the culmination of my life's work. I call this - "Aerial View of Four Sheep Grazing" :P

PET Scans and Manali

Okay, a bit late but here we go anyway - I had my final PET CT scan I have been proclaimed clean - free of all nasty cancer cells! Hoorah! The lesions that they found on my iliac region and the one on my rectouterine pouch (the back wall of the uterus) that worried my doctors have all been found to be non-malignant.

Oddly, despite being able to more or less take everything that's happened so far in stride, this final scan totally freaked me out. It's very different getting a scan for the first time and getting one when you already have a history behind you.

It's like standing in a courtroom, after months of lengthy trial, to hear the final verdict - "Am I going to get a death sentence (of sorts) or am I going to be given my freedom?" - something like that.

I think it also had to do with week after week and month after month of hanging on and hoping - with everything you got, and you finally get to a stage where you're so drained and depleted that it becomes really really really difficult to muster up even an iota of positivity.

So I did the cheesiest thing. The day of my scan - I went, got scanned, was in a bad mood for no reason, was surly and difficult with the poor nurses, then went home, packed my bags and flew down to Delhi to meet Cousin Bteii. She and I went to Manali. I stayed away for a week just to avoid having to face that final scan result.

And when I finally trudged back home, I was 6 days late to get my results. But like 'a messenger from radiant climes,' this result came and told us all the beautiful things that we wanted to hear. I'm thankful for God's goodness. (But only a small part of me is. It's complicated and I don't know how to explain it, so let's just leave it at that.)

Every single weekend this year has been spent at the hospital, and now I only need to go 3 months from now for a checkup. I feel liberated!

And Manali was beautiful. The highlight of my trip was this handsome guy, Tiger. He'd happily run to me when I get up in the morning, like we've been the closest and best of friends for an entire lifetime. And we'd go for long walks up the hill near where we stayed, and sitting there in the peace and quiet, with apple and cherry and peach blossoms all around us, and the beautiful Tiger happily sitting there by my side, I felt calm and at peace. I was happy inside out.