Lookat old me lookat old me with all. that. hair. But I was miserable then, so. It's strange to see that this photo was post-chemo because damn my eyelashes be spiderwebbing now and my brows are thick and fierce. Woop. Anyway, I don't remember if I've talked about this before but I've had people asking me these past few weeks about how I realised I had cancer. And how I'm doing. And how my side effects are. So here is my timeline in photos. (also see how I'm growing fatter already T_T because dietician sibei strict and keeps giving me fat milk, and also because now that I have blood in me my appetite is back fast and furious sianjipua happy but sad also ja feel?)
It kinda started at Krabi (good tams with da wife). I wasn't very ill yet, but I started feeling tired way too easily and too early into the day. But looking back, I think I damn qiang for climbing up and down boats, diving into open waters, finding my fish friends. This was the start of the breathlessness.
At this point I started working on FOC at school and I got so sian of paperwork that I decided to make crepes instead. I couldn't take standing for long hours and I was always desperate to get a seat at work, but I figured I was just bloody unfit.
So we had a trip to Cambodia and that was when I really thought I was dying. We were climbing up temples and while all the adults in their fifties and sixties were so far ahead of me, I was literally gasping for survival at the bottom of the hill. I thought I was drowning in the air. It felt so terrible. My limbs were weak, my skin so cold, and I really couldn't breathe. I had no other explanation besides me being terribly unfit. We made jokes about it and the kids laughed at me, but I was just so glad to be alive. When the youth extended the trip, CYZ commented every time the van stops for us to get down you look like you want to die because I did. I was so tired and weak and I hated all the physical activities. It was so difficult. This was also when my skin started to change colour (but my skin was so healthy boohoo).
I must have been the laziest OPMC member at FOC. All I did was stay in the office and work day to night, missing out on all the physical activity BECAUSE I KNEW I COULDN'T HANDLE IT. I felt really bad, but meh, at that point I really couldn't care about what the others thought of me because my body was crying for rest. We all fell really sick during this period because we didn't sleep much and all, and this led to two doctor's appointments and they gave me the same prescription. If you think you are sick, and it's not the common cold, PLEASE go to A&E and not some generic clinic. They really can't give to shits about looking in depth. I gave them ALL my symptoms and they just shoved me anti-biotics and cough meds. I'm still quite pissed at my stupidity. It would've saved me months and I probably wouldn't have been diagnosed so late. So please, please, please, go to the hospital if you think it's serious. Anyway, all I could think of during meal times was the lack of ice cubes. I barely touched my food.
During practicum, my appetite began to change drastically and all I wanted to eat was ice. Not my wife ice but like ice ice. It was so bizarre I thought I could appear on TLC channel for My Strange Addictions. I couldn't stomach real food but every time I got home I would walk straight to the freezer to eat ice. I googled the symptoms and they said I had anaemia. So I just accepted it. Anaemia is common, no? Also, my hair began to thin out so badly and I started losing a lot of weight (I was so happy but so miserable sigh what to do vain).
TTC meetings were pretty intense as we reached the end, and I think I was one of the only ones who didn't stay in hall. I was cabbing to school every day because my feet would not carry me to the bus stop. I would drag my body to the back door and pray for a cab. And I would cab home too. But TTC meetings always meant I had to drag my body to the bus stop, and it felt like I was climbing the temples in Cambodia again. I was so miserable taking the bus and train and bus home, I started to suspect that I was depressed. Had zero motivation to do anything at all. But this bunch of kids are so qiang I couldn't let them down or fall behind, so thank you for dragging me to school. I wouldn't have, otherwise. I looked yellow. So yellow.
During recess week the lit girls decided to head over to Bintan. There were stairs in the lobby that I absolutely dreaded, sorry Mel for letting you run to the receptionist by yourself so many times because I couldn't. I was tired all the time but the sea must have given me some supernatural strength because I went to find my fish friends again.
At this point, I really thought I was depressed. I started hating people, hating going out, hating eating. But I could always stomach sashimi. Always. Loke and Huimei came back to SG and we met up. And I was the most unfriendly, most quiet, bitchiest bitch mode face. I feel really really bad about being so mean and leaving early and not participating in conversations. I just wanted to cab every where and find myself in bed.
Because the only thing I could stomach and crave were this of no nutritious value (it's a symptom I sumpa), I started drinking. A lot. Also because I was so bummed all the time, I only felt happy when I had a drink in my hand and I was talking shit with my friends. At this point I had zero motivation to attend cell because I would rather lie in bed all Saturday. I had no motivation to go to church either. I felt so abandoned and weak and frustrated. It was a very very bad place for me to be in, that's why when I was in the hospital and helpless and diagnosed with cancer I felt so much better. Because there was a reason for how my body was reacting to the world.
I had to plan for investiture and it was such torture. I couldn't even walk from blk 1 to UiD without feeling like life is meaningless and I just want to die. I was puking a lot too. Once I felt so nauseated I wanted to hurry over to hotshot where my groupmates were to tell them that I wanted to puke (everyhting also tell whole world one). I saw them at the lift and before I could say anything I just puked. Sorry, canteen. Look at how yellow I am omg. Damn, son.
After all of that, it was recess week. It was Sunday and I was getting ready for church. I dreaded getting out of bed because every time I did I would hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I couldn't shower without panting because standing up for long made exhausted the shit out of me. I would always wrap myself in the towel and lie back in bed because I couldn't breathe. Anyway, this Sunday I realised things had gotten too bad because I couldn't walk from my door to the lift. I had to hold on to walls and poles and when I reached Voldy's car I laid down and told him to pick me from church to see a doctor. And then JENG JENG shit got real.
When I walked in the nurses were horrified at the colour of my face. So she ran a quick blood thing and found my blood count was unearthly low. She got me in to the ER and gave me a bed. So many doctors came asking me the same questions trying to diagnose me. They were arguing over whether to give me blood transfusions or to wait. By night time I was warded in a make-shift ward and given two bags of blood. Two more the next day. When I finally got a proper ward they did tests on me to figure out where the blood was going. Colonoscopy was the last test they did because they never expected a person my age to get colorectal cancer. I champion first. My colonoscopy doctor was blasting Jay Chou rap though so that was fun. Since that day my body no longer belonged to me. Shame was a foreign term. Privacy did not exist. As much as I loathe how people are treating me so differently now, giving me free passes and being exceptionally nice to me because I'm sick and shit, I'm also really glad for the friends who've stuck by me.
This was the Sunday before my first ever chemotherapy. I didn't know what to expect when chemo came, motherlorde was flipping out already so independence was to be stripped, I knew it. So I wanted to milk all I could out of this day. Had alllllllllll the sashimi I wanted (sigh miss my hair miss my face). Even though I hardly get to hang out with the matbros anymore it was sweet that they were there on my last day. And this OJK, my solid brother even though he abuses me so much.
I celebrated my birthday early with the lit girls and (I know they were being extra sweet because of my condition but they are always sweet nonetheless) they were really really cool. They got me a beanbag with the boys and how they presented me with the present showed how much they paid attention to my ramblings and all. I really didn't and I still don't deserve all their love. Very grateful.
My favourite thing was when I told ahbeng I hated wearing masks and he said limpei wear with you. I love you very very much ju know that <3 I never knew how much he cared for me until this, and until the day he visited me at the hospital. I very stun because yOU ARE AH BENG YOU ARE TOUGH. HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH.
Poly kids celebrated my birthday with me and this was after chemo so my skin was BAD SO BAD. It was only after the first cycle and I had no medication yet. I couldn't cough or sneeze or laugh because my skin was terribly dry and it would crack every time I moved. It's not easy trying to contain your laughter when these kids are around.
My skin started to get worse and worse and I had no eyebrows left. Hen miserable. Hen hen hen miserable. My scalp was constantly on fire and sigh, I talked about it before. It still haunts me. Anyway.
Even though we don't meet as often, grimlay is like imba loyal. Despite what my doctor said and all I still went for laneway. Music festivals are a petridish for infections. This was after I discovered (and splurged on) the wonders of make up. But being a sick daughter of voldy and motherlorde meant I had to be home early. My friends were really sweet though, making sure I was okay, pulling me away from smokers (but they were EVERYWHERE), allowing me to be a sloth while they got food and coffee and all. Nah, grimlay always gentleman la not because I sick. THANK YOU FOR MAKING ME FEEL NORMAL. And not being awkward and afraid of saying the wrong things.
Despite make up I still felt really really alien-like, but Giselle always made sure she edited the photos to her best ability. <3 ALWAYS making sure I was okay also. Sigh sigh sigh so much love for you all. My hair sooooooooo thin and bad sigh.
Surgery meant I had stopped chemo for three weeks. My skin started to heal, brows began to grow, everything felt okay. Until I decided to go back to school to support TTC's welfare pack. I feel so guilty for not being part of TTC, not so much that I had missed out on a lot, but I couldn't contribute ): But these kind kids always made me feel like I was part of the group and they never shut me up when I spout rubbish in the WA groups. Going back to school was SO UNCOMFORTABLE for me. Because when I went back the last time for classes, I could literally hear kids from the other courses whispering behind me eh is that Carissa? eh she come back already ah? Either that or people (not from lit and not livia or lynn) would go HEYYYYY what happen to you? Are you sick? It's awkward and uncomfortable and I'm already not a people person. I felt so insecure going back to school, like it was my first day all over again and I was sibei self-conscious. But I had lynn save me on her little scooter <3
Macam suffer heartbreak like that, I went to chop my hair off before returning to school for the final lessons. I missed an entire term of school. I kinda missed the entire sem too because before surgery my chemo dates would always clash with the time table.
And so this is now. Second round of chemo, having my second cycle now. Am I sad? Hell yeah I'm sad. I'm sad that I have a giant scar, multiple scars, no hair, weird ass lashes, extra weight from all the prescriptions, the fact that friends who said they'd be here for me are ignoring me completely, I've lost my closest friends during these few months, and it sucks because this is when I needed them most, never felt so terrible before. But I'm grateful, too. I sleep with no tubes stuck in me (well other than chemo tubes), I sleep with no pain, my head rests on my pillow and my scalp no longer burns, my nails no longer cut into my skin, I get to study and sit for my paper, my friends are so loving and supportive, I am still alive.
It's hard to balance it all when there's so much drama in your life, when you want to mourn the death of your friendships, when you want to mourn the extra pounds and how different you look today. And the fact that one of my bestfriends said that my negativity rubbed of them did not help at all. It's like, okay. So who can I be vulnerable around? Is this why the people I love most always find a way out of my life? Am I so toxic? It's not like I want to be negative, I hate negative vibes. But if you consider yourself my close friend and allow yourself to be vulnerable around me, I would do the same. So when you say shit like that I really don't know how to respond. And when I shut my mouth and blog about it instead, talking to myself and rationalising thoughts myself, I get criticised for being too public. What the hell. There are really so many things I'm pissed about at the moment. Like how you can be there for a friend and receive isolation in return. What the hell did I do to push you away. This is why I said, I always feel like the supporting character in a movie. And so often I just want to stop talking to people completely because as much as they say they care and they want to be there for you, people get tired of your shit. I know you're not supposed to expect anything in return when you care for somebody. But I've never felt so isolated. People can say a shit load of things and write good wishes down on cards. But when it comes to actually being there.
I wonder if people take words as seriously as I do. I don't want to be angry. I don't want these bad feelings. But I guess I surround myself with people who treat me like crap all too often.
Anyway.
I am very grateful for those who've stuck by me.
And I'm tired of apologising for being honest.