I am your 23-year-old Baldy who recently survived cancer while the world battled the second wave of COVID in 2021. Honestly, there’s nothing admirable or gallant about battling cancer. It’s straight-up ugly and horrid.

The fact that I could be saved was a blessing, a ray of hope, and the only thing I was holding onto during the entire ordeal.

The Signs and Confusion

I thought my COVID fever back in April would lead to recovery, but instead, admission for pneumonia also occurred. By the time the treatment was over, my health began to deteriorate.

Symptoms like frequent nausea, absolutely no appetite, swollen tonsils, loose gums, diarrhea, and extremely low blood pressure that led to severe heart palpitations

The side effects of the steroids and antibiotics given to treat pneumonia were thought to be the cause. By the end of the month, I was anemic. For someone with a 13HB hemoglobin, 5.5 was alarming. I was rushed to the hospital for an emergency blood transfusion.

Shocking for us and confusing for the doctors as they ran multiple urinary and blood tests. From CAT scans to ultrasound to ECG, leaving no stone unturned just to figure out my crazy blood test reports.

The Diagnosis and Dismay

The doctor’s worst nightmare came true, something that we could never have anticipated in this life.

I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia with 70% blasts, where 20% is the minimum required amount for diagnosing it.

The thing with AML is that there is no stage; it just keeps spreading rapidly within weeks.

Amusingly, my family had received the benefit of the doubt since they were the ones who got all my test reports before the final diagnosis. The doctors too had shared their suspicions with them from the very beginning.

And who was left in the dark till the very end? ME! I was more dismayed by my family hiding my diagnosis from me than the diagnosis itself! Awkward laughs

Nevertheless, my family was utterly distressed and disturbed by the news. But oblivious to all this, my whole world had turned upside down.

The Doctor and the Cure

Too sick and weak to even notice where I was being taken while being wheeled through the hallway to my doctor’s office. The place was swarming with ill and bald people whom I took no notice of. My doctor savior was the one who broke ‘the news’ to me.

I still remember the first thing he spoke to me about before even asking my name was complimenting my hairstyle! He found it amusing that I had managed to get a fancy haircut during the pandemic. I was still completely clueless!!

I sat frozen on a stool (to be precise) without the necessary support unlike a chair as he uttered the word ‘cancer,’ my head went blank. My eyes pooled with tears. Literal ‘pairon tale Zameen khisak jaana’ (felt the floor slipping beneath my feet) moment!

I struggled to shake the shock off my head for a few milliseconds, trying to ignore the ‘Whys’ popping in my mind.

My adrenaline, cortisol kicked in as I asked, “What’s next?” “How are things gonna go from here?” and endless queries about the treatment, scaring my doctor away.

The Treatment: The only way to treat Leukemia is a bone marrow transplant which ensures a 70% chance of success. It all starts with two mandatory chemotherapies. Induction chemotherapy, which eliminates blasts from your blood, is the first phase of treatment. After recovering from induction, Consolidation chemotherapy is administered to eliminate any remaining blasts.

The Lines through the Veins

There was no waiting. I was admitted the next day and chemotherapy after inserting a PICC line into my left arm.

Chemotherapy through drugs was the plan.

I felt weak when it began before I started feeling slightly better. However, the effects kicked in. I was down with a severe fever- a necessary evil. Loose gums, nausea, and vomiting were common complaints. Never going to forget the change in smell and the horrendous taste buds I developed after chemo.

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And here is the worst part. Intense chemotherapy reduces your blood and platelet counts so I received blood and platelet transfusions almost daily. We leukemia patients practically survive on it!

Every time the needle pricked through my veins, the sharp-shooting pain would bring tears to my eyes while I clenched my fists to endure the pain. Thinning veins and IV don’t work together. An IV would barely last for two days whereas the treatment would last five months. I lost count after the fiftieth one.

One of my worst experiences was during my first-ever bone marrow biopsy before starting my second chemo. It felt as if someone had cut me deep Into the pelvic bone then nailed it hard with a hammer, and scraped the insides of my bone.

Yes, you feel every damn sensation! The local anesthetic only numbs you. I had two of those, so much for making memories, haha.

The White Cubical

I underwent a minor surgery to insert another PICC into my neck because the one in my arm got damaged within three months of use for my first two chemotherapies. I endured three weeks of pain and agony in the BMT unit for my transplant.

What’s a BMT unit?

A small glass chamber with a white ceiling, no ventilation, strictly air-conditioned, and a small glassed window to peep into the outside. A gloomy cell for insane patients in my imagination. I had spent every waking moment glued to fluids – three at once.

On a serious note, a BMT room is a carefully controlled environment designed to support patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation while minimizing the risk of complications and infections. BMT rooms are often isolated from other hospital areas to reduce the risk of exposure to infectious agents. They may have restricted access to prevent unnecessary traffic and potential contamination.

Your body weakens gradually; walking up to the bathroom or just sitting becomes impossible. All you can do is lie down and endure stomach aches with no appetite. Well this was me in my BMT unit.

I got used to the sleepless nights, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night to nausea, or some nights it was diarrhea. There were instances when I’d receive a chemo injection, and the next second, I’d be vomiting it out. Gross much.

It certainly does live up to its reputation as a ‘living nightmare’ for all Leukemia patients, as my doctor and nurses described it.

The Aftermath

Being admitted three times after my transplant for various infections and malnutrition was depressing.

When you receive a treatment promising well-being and improvement but instead, things go downhill. It makes you feel as if the treatment has backfired, demotivating you further. It becomes difficult to hang on to hope then. Malnutrition reduced me to mere bones.

Being admitted to the hospital back and forth for the next three months after my transplant due to various reasons like a stomach infection was horrendous. To diagnose it, I had to undergo an endoscopy, which was challenging because I had an empty stomach the entire month. Then again in January right after my birthday they found in an endoscopy that the my stomach had

I’m still not healed after more than two years. The threat is over, but the scars remain as I deal with my treatment’s side effects.

More precisely this phenomenon called GVHD (Graft Versus Host Diseases) took over and sabotaged my system within three months of my transplant. I got to know about after I started my eyes started drying up to the point of unable to open and started swelling up.

I depend on eyedrops and artificial saliva to live a bit normally.

My skin, charred and damaged, covered with black spots all over my body, and I live with a damaged liver.

Today my immune system attacks itself. A compromised immune system has its risks.

That’s not even the worst part. I’ve got menopause at twenty-three. Being dependent on hormone pills to keep my bones safe sucks.

All of this is just the physical aspect of the side effects. It’s difficult to put into a few words how mentally taxing it is. And so I’m on a long leave from my college, which interestingly is my ‘dream college’.

I had to compromise a lot unknowingly just so I could survive.