Life’s unpredictability is something I had often heard about, but it wasn’t until these past few months that I truly experienced its meaning. On December 29th, 2023, my mother visited a local pulmonologist with the chief complaint of a cough and cold. He prescribed basic medications for her symptoms. Even after taking the medications, her cough persisted for almost three months. We assumed it was common to have a long-term cough after COVID-19 and thought it would eventually subside. However, it persisted.
On March 23rd, 2024, my parents went to another city to attend my uncle’s (Jethu’s) funeral. The ceremony brought together many relatives, including my cousin, who is a doctor. At the funeral, my mother mentioned her ongoing cough to my cousin. He asked if she experienced any chest or back pain while coughing, and she confirmed she did sometimes. Later, my cousin confided in me that he was concerned about the sound of her cough and recommended a chest X-ray.
My parents returned home on March 25th, 2024, and the next day, they had an X-ray done. Upon reviewing the X-ray, my cousin urged my father to get a CT scan done and consult a local doctor. Due to the Holi festival, the pulmonologist we had consulted in December was unavailable for a week, so we had to wait anxiously, never imagining that it would be diagnosed as something so serious.
When my parents finally saw the doctor on April 1st, 2024, he referred to a “cyst” (rather than a tumor) on her left lung to avoid alarming us. He advised us to get a CT scan done as soon as possible, after which he might need to hospitalize my mother. On April 2nd, my mother had her CT scan done, and on the same day, my father left for the 13th-day death ceremony (Terahvi) of my uncle.
On April 3rd, 2024, around 10 am, I took my mother for an MRI (to confirm the report of the CT scan), and around 1 pm, my father called, instructing me to take all the reports along with my mother to see an oncologist recommended by a mutual friend. When I visited the oncologist, she saw all the reports and then requested some additional tests, including a biopsy. Before going for the tests, I asked her to explain the reports, but she preferred not to say anything in front of my mother and to wait until all tests were completed before discussing details.
At the pathology center, while waiting for the biopsy, the mutual friend who had recommended the oncologist, who is also the owner of the pathology center, called and said something that was difficult for me to digest. As I too belong to the medical field, he thought it was better to inform me first before telling my father about it. He told me that the cancer had spread to other parts of my mother’s body, suggesting it was in the third or fourth stage.
After all the tests and dropping my mother at home, I took the reports to the oncologist. She confirmed the worst: my mother had stage 4 lung cancer. Having anticipated this, I focused on understanding the treatment plan. After that, I left the hospital feeling numb, still trying to digest the things that I had seen and the words that I had heard in the last few hours. I sat in the car, gathered myself, and drove back home.
I returned home, still processing the news. My mother, unaware of the full extent of her condition, was left in the dark for the time being. Our journey had just begun, and we were stepping into the unknown, armed with hope and determination.