My breast cancer diaries 2: a cancer patient is not a doormat

This post is quite long as I finally had the opportunity to sit down and write my heart out. So get in with a big mug of coffee and have the patience for the story or get out.

So as I was looking yesterday at the dark night sky while fireworks were splashing marvelous colours in front of my eyes I was thinking: how did I end up like this? I realize that I am lucky to see this show as so many people are born without the ability to see. I return to my bed, with my knees , right shoulder and hand wrapped in cabbage leaves and pray for a hug from the Holy Mary. It is lonely at night for a single woman with breast cancer and chemo complications.

Here I am on the 25th of october finally able to write. I had my right hand swollen and that was a breaking point for me. I realised how helpless one can become in an instant and the world goes on without them.

My first chemotherapy session was on the 22nd of september. My sister was able to come from 577 km to be with me for a week. For my mental well being this meant a lot at the beginning of a journey I did not sign up for. There are many things that I had to deal with since receiving this diagnosis. The pity in the people’s eyes when they saw my hair and they knew that I was about to lose it. I remember checking in in the hospital in the morning of the first chemo and telling the receptionist that she should not be sad if I am not sad for my situation. I find it puzzling really. While I say my story people make it about them, how sad They are. No wonder we live in such a depressed society: egocentrism is at its highest.

I received epirubicin and ciclophosphamide. Epirubicin is the bright red bottle and it makes your urine pink after the session. I prayed. I took my praying books and while waiting for the treatment I prayed. I also prepared myself in the morning by taking a cold shower and putting menthol cooling cream on my scalp and eyebrows. I know that a doctor would consider this futile but for my mental comfort I did these procedures. I drank plenty of water while receiving the intravenous treatment.

In the room where I was receiving the toxic cocktail there were a lot of things going on. Patients came in and out , usually to have their blood taken. Nurses were continously moving from one pacient to another. I felt like in a busy McDonalds. Like I am on the line for the next fast food serving. Call me picky or pretentious , but I strongly believe that chemotherapy patients should receive their treatment in a separate room, where there is silence and privacy. I could hear so many noises in this room: the printer was loudly vomiting the next medical papers, the nurses were taking tubes and plastic containers and rushed them to the laboratory, patients came and asked various questions while here I was… on a turquoise chair, receiving my chemo and praying for my veins to hold on. I have been told that the first four red bottles are the worst chemotherapy drugs and that if I get over those I am a super hero. They said I should go through eight chemotherapy sessions starting september, one every 20 days.

I look at the red bottle coming in a plastic container with my name on it. It is cold. I came at 8 in the morning and I barely managed to get this red thing into my veins around 11. I had to sit idly to wait for the bottle to get to room temperature. This is crazy. We are in 2025 and here I am, waiting for room temperature to make my medical treatment possible? I start to gather frustration and hate for the romanian medical system even more. I see one of the nurses taking the bottle and holding it in her hands:”We can’t put it into your body when it is cold, we have to wait it out”. I sigh. I tell her: “Can you please give the red bottle to me?I can hold it close to my belly and warm it up”.I lied. My intention was not to warm this up as to pray and touch the bottle and put my intention on it.Particles change once they are observed and I strongly believe in the quantum physics and the power of intention. So I prayed in order to make that bottle be flushed out immediately by my body.

After almost 5 hours I was finally done. But not before I would be taken into a private room and layed on a green bed. I would then lift my blouse and let the nurse take an injection and rapidly splashing its content into my left part of my belly. Zoladex is the name of the cursed injection that made me cry for days and curse even the angels. My breast cancer is hormonal. A second part of my treatment besides chemotherapy is to stop hormonal production. I will translate it to you: I have to be forced to enter menopause at 35 years old for at least 5 years ( that is what my oncologist said). I am pissed. At the peak of my fertility this cancer messed up everything I had planned for my life. I hate what is happening to me and I have a problem in accepting an injection in my belly once a month which steals my fertile window.

I prayed for that injection to not work. My period came. But I continued to bleed for two more weeks and I have read that this is common after Zoladex. I still believe nothing from what I am being told and I am open to miracles happening. I refuse to believe that it will be too late for me to have children after this cancer nightmare is out of my life. It feels cruel and unfair and we’ll get to the part where I literally cursed God.

The days after my first session were ok. I had no vomiting or nausea. I explored the city with my sister. It was wonderful. A couple of days after I decided I would cut my hair instead of waiting for it to fall down in chunks. First I had cut a ponytail which I have kept. Then I kept only the hair from the top of the head and trimmed to zero the rest. After a week I saw that the hair on top started to fall and I could not pull off the rockstar bob haircut anymore. So I have taken the cheap chinese machine I have bought with my sister and off it went. I have also kept my second ponytail.

It was odd to lose so much hair at once. But I do not care. I do not mourn it. I do not miss it. I know it will grow back and my sense of self worth does not depend on my auburn locks. Even a weird thought popped into my mind: now with all of this beauty gone, I wonder if men will be more eager to discover my soul now that they are no longer lured by external beauty? I had an inner laugh and knew that at this moment in my life, bald and challenged, finding a mate would be a different ball game. I did another thing: I did not return to the pathology office my biopsy blocks. No. I keep them at home and do Ho'oponopono on them each morning. I bet my oncologist would not smile at the thought of this. Who cares? I never obeyed authority.

At my second chemotherapy my sister could not come because she got a cold. I can’t catch a cold or any virus. So even if I would have wanted her here I told her to sit her ass home.

I attended on the 6th of october one of the first classes of practical drawing at the university. It was cold. The room had no heating and we had stayed there three hours. Now looking back this was a huge mistake, I should have left the moment I saw there is no heat. I look at this as being a total lack of respect towards students. This heating problem is not recent, it is going on for five years and every year the new students are being lied that there is a temporary heating problem. I wanted to scream! Because of this cold , several days later I had a reaction. I got inflammation and bone pain. Combined with my chemotherapy...this was not very good. On the 10th of october I had my oncologist send me to an orthopedian because I could no longer walk because my right knee was super swollen filled with liquid. Bursitis. And it has spread to my right shoulder and left knee too. For the first time in my 35 years of life I was carried into a wheelchair into the orthopedian’s office. The guy was a douchebag. Not a romanian, he was sitting next to the resident student and looked at me: “Oh, you are a bit dramatic by coming in into a wheelchair, don’t you think?.This man deserves to be murdered or to get cancer. His attitude was misogynistic and out of line. He told me to get up and to make some moves. I was visibly swollen and unable. I tried and bursted into tears. I felt like I was a puppet in a sadistic show for the doctor. “Come on, make some moves.”. Fucking idiot.

He then sat me on the bed and ran his hands over my knees. He gave me a ten day treatment with antiinflammatory pills and recommended me ice packs. At the end of this ordeal he told me to never lose my smile. This kind of people should never be allowed to become doctors. Lacking emotional intelligence is something that should be considered a severe handicap and medical license should not be given to those who are less emotionally smart than a pig. I still wish death to this orthopedian who works at this big private hospital... still.

His treatment made me feel sick and lose my appetite. The inflammation did not disappear, I was just as swollen. After five days I stopped it because I saw what it did to me. I wrote to a lady that deals with my nutrition and asked for help. I managed to get back on my feet and have my hand , shoulder and knee better by doing this very precise protocol I am about to write down:

• in the morning I take one mouthful of olive oil and I do oil pulling for 20 minutes. This technique makes the oil extract all of the toxins from your body. I then spill it out and brush my teeth. I do this three times per day.

• in one liter of water I put one tablespoon of baking soda, one tablespoon of turmeric and a pinch of black pepper. I drink this after I do my oil pulling.

• over night I apply on my swollen hand , shoulder and knees Voltarel forte gel and a chestnut cream with a cooling effect. After this I take white cabbage leaves and smash them in order to make them release some juice and wrap this with cotton material around my knees, shoulder and hand and leave it overnight. Voltaren and chestnut cream are applied three times per day and I do the cabbage wrap before going to sleep.

• internal consumption of turmeric and pepper capsules, two per day (1200 mg in total)

-AFTER ONLY TWO DAYS OF DOING THIS PROTOCOL MY HAND GOT COMPLETELY UNSWOLLEN AND MY KNEES ARE HALF BETTER. PAIN IS GONE. I WISH EVEN MORE DEATH TO THE IDIOT.

After complete recovery that foreign orthopedian ( yes, take your freedom to believe that I am a racist cranky lady) would deserve a kick in his butt way back to his native land but I would not waste my precious knee energy for such a jerk.

The pity is that the medical system also has wonderful people but they are not so numerous as the jerks. I try to refrain from casting a whole label on an industry because of the many idiots in it but I was replaying the moment in the orthopedian’s office and I was thinking: what if another chemo patient comes across him and they do not have such mental power? What if his patients have no access to alternative medicine and gifted doctors? What if his patients obediently follow his dumbass treatment and get worse just because of the side effects?. Lord forgive me but I wish such medical professionals fast death.

Coming back to my second chemotherapy which happened on the 13th of october. It happened much faster. I came with two pillows in order to rest my swollen knees. I prepared two liters of water in which I have put turmeric, pepper and ginger in order to drink it while the red bottle is being pumped into my veins. I arrived at 8 in the company of Alberto, the neighbhour one floor under me. He saw me one day prior trying to walk to the garbage place to throw mine and by entering small talk he found out my story and offered to drive me there. God does send angels once in a while even for bitter chemo patiens who wish death to the doctors who suck at emotional intelligence.

I was given chemotherapy faster this time. When the red bottle came there was no longer a need to warm it up. I missed holding that bottle. The minute it arrived and saw my name on the two bottles I started to pray and ask for Holy Mary to work Her magic on these toxic cocktails and help me one more time to get through this. In two hours I was done. But what happened at the end of my second chemotherapy will shock you.

As I was looking at the transparent bottle of ciclophosphamide almost getting empy I was ready to receive the nice transparent bottle of physiological serum to wash away my veins. You see….this intravenous cocktail is toxic and it is good to have your veins washed a tad bid after the treatment. The first time I was given a full bottle of physiological serum and slowly waited it out. When my ciclophosphamide bottle finished I see a nurse ( for who I did not have a great feeling about the moment I met her) takes a syringe and start pumping some transparent stuff into my veins. I bulge my eyes in horror and ask her what is she doing and she rushes me telling me that this method is faster to clear my veins there no more times and bla bla. She acted like a bitch. Well bitch you picked the wrong patient! I told her: “Stop what you are doing IMMEDIATELY and put me a whole bottle of physiological serum just like you did the first time”.She did not see this coming. She takes her phone and calls the resident doctor while I was in the room and talking with her about me, telling her that I am a dissatisfied patient who does not understand procedure and that she should come to explain to me that putting physiological serum into a syringe and pumping it in one minute is the same thing. This was so rude! The resident came to talk to me while my classical serum bottle was being put by the rude nurse. She explained stuff. I told her: “Well, bare in mind that my situation as it is is complicated and difficult for my mental well being. If I can have a little comfort by being treated in the same way as in the first time then I demand to be given this bottle even if it costs five more minutes.” The resident doctor remained mute. The nurse sat on the chair and was dead silent. She thought that I would be put into my place. Wrong. The resident then opened her mouth and told me that she understands my point of view and that my request is more than okay and I should be free of concern because I will be given that bottle at the end of my treatment every time. I could see the bitch nurse losing her breath. Maybe Beyonce should have come at that moment to sing to her : “bitchy nurse don’t cha lose ya breath, bitchy nurse don’t cha lose ya breath”. You see, you might believe that a cancer patient is a meek creature, at the mercy of the Universe, beaten out because of diagnoses and chemotheraphy. And perhaps some nurses are used to treating patiens as doormats because the latter no longer have the energy, the willpower or the stamina to fight back. YOU GIVE ME DISRESPECT I GIVE YOU HELL AND WISH YOU A FAST TRIP TO HEAVEN TO HAVE THE LORD LOVE YOU AS I CANNOT. I did tell the whole episode with the nurse and the orthopedian to my oncologist’s assistant. Things do not change if we remain silent. And I dread the thought of these kind of things happening to the elderly or to those who have depression and are unable to fight back barbarism, lack of respect and plain hood behaviour. I have zero tolerance for this even if I have a bold head and swollen knees. That bitch will remember me.

Wait….could this be all? No. When I had to take the bus back to my small town to meet with the medical committee in order to have my medical status given ( you can do this for cancer, it is seen as a handicap) I was again left speechless by the romanian pure shit attitude of the medical personnel.

Out of 20 people who waited to be seen by the committee I was given the 20th number in line. With my knees still swollen. Are those ladies blind or stupid? I waited it out. I came back into their room 20 minutes later and showed them my situation and told them that it is impossible for me the wait this long. Their brain finally came back from the death land and once the doctor came they allowed me to enter first. What I am about to tell you defies the norms of ethical attitude and human behaviour.

My medical file was complete. I just had to be seen and assessed (which I still think it is stupid: why call a cancer patient to come and be seen if their file already tells the story? Why put the on the road and torture them? The one who gave this law… I wish sweet death to him too). The lady doctor, a woman way over her 50’s, sits on a chair and looks through my file. She screams in amazement: “What? You are doing treatment in this town and this private hospital? Why? Come back to this small town, there are doctors here too!!” . In that very moment I thought murder. Then I thought in my mind: “Are you speaking from experience? Did you had cancer and miraculously healed in this shit town and talk to me like this from your personal story?”. I refrained from telling this woman anything. I was fuming and burning inside. Another idiot in the system killing the human spirit of ill pacients. She should not have been given a medical license and I wished her cancer with the only possibility to get stuck in the shit town for treatment. God forgive me , but may You love this kind of people, I can only wish them death and a fast trip to the other side. Although my file was okay , the doctor said: “I would like to see a recent blood test please”.Are you serious? Does it look like I am running with the pigs on the hills of Ireland and come here to you in Romania to make this handicapped person file out of boredom? I give it to her with an acid feeling of repulsion in my mouth. I wanted the vomit of repulsion, anger and unfairness to be spilled onto the body of this emotionally uncapable woman by pulling her into the abyss of her own misery where she should stay for eternity. At the end of our meeting she wished me all the best while “ I hope to see you in better circumstances next time”.Reading about her obituary in the newspapers would be fabulous circumstance for me. You might judge me harshly for these statements but have you walked into my shoes? Have you ever had to deal with the romanian/stupid medical system? Have you ever had to feel treated like you are nobody ? Only God can love this kind of people, I wish them death or at least terminal cancer.

Romania is not filled only with these monsters. There are also beautiful people with hearts so big it makes my eyes tear out. I find no words of appreciation for the nutritionist doctor who helped me out pro bono with advices and treatment solutions after conventional medicine failed. At the hospital next to that horrible nurse there are also two nurses which are obviously doing their job because they had a calling and they love what they do. I could see it in their attitude, in their looks, in the way they took my hand and gave me the injection. The thing is that the other monsters are so bad and so many that these angels filled with light can barely save the image of an entire system. What could I do to help those who are less fortunate than me? I feel a huge desire to motherfucking change something in order to save future patients from douchebags like the orthopedian or the medical committee doctor. But how?

I had a bone to pick with God these days. I could not yet understand why He allows horrible people to pass cancer free through life while the most nicest people I ever met were burdened with terrible diagnoses?Where is the divine love? When a woman loses her child with cancer….why did God allow it? I felt anger just for having my limbs swollen for almost two weeks but when I pass on the street and see people in a wheelchair or without a leg or an arm...I wonder how are those people loving on God and how was that fair to happen to them?

This week, after finally coming back to the big town after having the idiot medical committee doctor spit her emotional unintelligence into my face, I went to confess my sins to a priest that my sister’s priest recommended. Father Francisc. He patiently listened to me while I spilled my venom, sadness, frustration, anger and despair. At the end I liked his answer: he does not pretend to have an answer to my sufferings because he never went through it and he could not imagine how it could be to be in my shoes. His honesty and humanity was a balm to my soul He urged me to belive in miracles. At the end of my confession I told him that I still wish sweet death to that woman in the committee and if this is okay if I want to go to the sermon and take the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ. He laughed. I laughed. He said yeah, it’s okay.

I am just a human and despite my desire to love the one who does me harm, now during vulnerability and a change of status in our fucked up society I realize that it is okay to let it go and accept that in many moments we can hate, despise, wish harm and death to those who are emotionally dumb and in position of power. Unfortunately I can’t leave this Planet so I might as well get a tougher skin and let no one be fooled: a cancer patient is not a doormat.