Day 73 : Eka Uvacha

Madam has turned dramatic these days.


When I scolded her for doing something naughty...

[Wailing away]
"Why are you scolding meeeeeee.....
I thought we were friendssssssss.....!"

In a story that she was conjuring....

"Once upon time there was a princess.
Who went to the garden and pluck flowers.
And her life came to nothing."

Yup, 'her life came to nothing'.




And my favourite...

To her dad, "One day, you will die."
And then, turning to our helper, "One day, you will also die."


27 more to go. 

Day 71 - 72 : Maxing it Out!

It was the weekend after the "D-Day" and I was feeling on top of the world from the good news we received yesterday - We can go back to a normal life, at least for six months! That was awesome!


So I did what I usually do best. I decided to max it out.


I went to the temple to say big round of thank you.


I booked two holidays - one to Phuket in July and one to Bali in August.


I spent some good time catching up with friends, in laws and of course, the husband.


I took Madam on many outings - to the temple, to United Square for her favourite ride followed by Japanese food at Ichiban Boshi, to get her favourite Thai food from E-Sarn (the only place where she heartily gulps down vegetables!), to play with her best friend K at the Singapore Cricket Club.


I ate a lot - Japanese, Thai, Indian and an overload of home cooked food.  


I read a lot - current it is Anita Nair's "Mistress" (once again, such beautiful language but terrible plot!)


I did a lot of yoga - so much so that I realized I can now do Heron pose (Krounchasana) and Compass pose (Parivritta Surya Yantrasana)!


Yes, I maxed it out and man, did it feel good!


428 more to go.

Day 70: The D-Day!

The D-day was here. All of us woke up bright and early, including little Miss Shukla, who was interestingly, quite excited to go to the hospital. Apparently, she had been missing the garden there and she couldn’t wait to pluck the flowers again! I love this ability of hers – that of remembering only what she loved and never about the painful times. It has made the repeated visits to the hospital a lot less traumatic for all of us.

We got to the hospital, was admitted quickly, she happily changed into her hospital scrubs, and we took off to the garden where she plucked the flowers and talked to the birds until they came to take her to the MRI room. 

Preparation for MRI was not too traumatic either. Usually we have a kicking, screaming child whom they insert the IV into but this time, they first gave her an anesthetic gas and then inserted the IV, so she didn’t know much pain. But then she went ahead and yanked the IV away during the MRI itself and they had to reinsert it into her other hand. Oh well! The anesthetist did assure us later that she will have no recollection of it, so I guess that's good. 

While we were waiting in the MRI room, I called her neurosurgeon’s clinic to know the next steps. I was told that while the scan results will be available by the afternoon, the doctor would be out on a surgery and hence, we were advised to come back on Monday to meet him. So I mentally prepared to let things go and not think of potential scenarios until Monday. 

Once she got back out of the MRI room, after some initial drowsiness, she was back to her usual chirpy self pretty quickly. She changed out of the scrubs and back into her own clothes, and insisted on a dab of lipstick for good effect (don’t ask!).  As soon as she had her food and showed no signs of any after effects of the anesthesia, we wanted to get her discharged. 

So I went to the ward nurse to start the procedure. First she asked me to wait until we hear back from the doctor. Apparently, they had sent the scan results for him to take a look even though he was in a surgery and were now waiting to hear back. So we waited, and after a while, she updated that doctor has seen the reports and wants us to wait for him and not get discharged.

Gulp.

These vague statements are what make you a nervous wreck in such situations. Why doesn’t the doctor want us to get discharged ? Why can’t his conversation with us wait until Monday? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is it simply that he wants to meet Eka since he hadn’t seen her for three months? Or the best case scenario - does he simply want to share some good news with us as fast as possible? Or the worst of all, are we on an emergency situation (that has happened before too)? 

There were so many questions and no answers, so we just had to suck it up and wait.

So that's what we did. We waited. Thankfully the little Madam was in full form and ruling over us and the hospital staff and having a ball. She was probably as happy as she would be in a playground!

Post MRI, at the hospital coffee shop buying macaroons 

Soon the doctor came by and the first thing he says is “The scans look good”. Phew!!! So it was the best case after all - he just wanted to give us the good news as soon as possible! God bless him! 

He went on to say that the tumor is stable – it is still present but hasn’t grown, which is such a blessing! Also, the excess fluid that she had on both sides of her brain are more or less stable as well. In fact on the left side, it seems to have completely adjusted the levels. 

Which is all such awesome, awesome news!!! 

I felt like all the knots in my body released and felt several kilos lighter. My in laws, husband and I hugged each other in joy while Madam wondered what the fuss was all about.

The doctor did say that we cant leave the tumor alone – we need to get another scan done in six months' time and we will need to treat it via microradiosurgery some time next year when her brain is more developed. But for now, we can go back to our lives. Of course, we always have to keep an eye out for any symptoms, but I guess that is something we will have to live with for the rest of our lives.

So we returned home , a rather happy bunch of people! 

I thanked all the Gods and went to bed early. Because there was nothing more that I wanted – than just to sleep with a lightened heart.

Thank you to everyone who sent a good wish, a prayer across! I can't tell you how much I appreciate that!

430 more to go. 

Days 66 - 69 : The Wait.

Madam's next MRI scan is scheduled for the 27th of May. Which means, that I spent the last few days thinking about pretty much nothing else. There are so many unknowns that would get their answers on 27th. Is the tumor growing? Is the excess fluid in her brain under control? Is there pressure in her brain?  Would she need to do microradiosurgery immediately? Life had started to seem normal over the last few weeks, would all of it go out for a toss?

I found myself returning to these questions over and over again and it took all my willpower to ignore them and move on with whatever I was doing at the moment. I realized that if I don't keep myself fully occupied, I would simply worry myself silly.

So that's what I did - I immersed myself in activities. Work helped because there were several important meetings that I had to prepare for and I had evening calls every single day running past midnight, I applied to film festivals (which are more time consuming than one would think), I spent a lot of time with Madam, painting, reading and going on outings, I did a lot of yoga, I finished reading a book (one of Simon Brett's Fethering mysteries) and I took mom in law for pain therapy sessions for her knee problem - after which we celebrated with some really good food and drinks at TCC.

In fact, I was so focused on keeping my mind occupied that when my poor husband came over and started a conversation saying "I hope she is fine...", thereby expressing his nervousness about what might happen on 27th, I mercilessly cut him off with a "Sorry, I don't wanna think about it. Am gonna read my book" and promptly did just that. That was probably rather selfish and not very considerate, but well, that's what I did. Because thinking about it gives me palpitations and I don't quite enjoy that feeling.

This focus on distracting myself did work pretty well in a few ways - some of those important meetings turned out pretty well, I spent some good time catching up with the in-laws on our outings to the pain relief clinic and TCC after, and it was also nice when Madam joined us on an unexpected weekday afternoon trip once. To a large extent, all of this did help me forget about the upcoming day too.

And now the wait is almost over because tomorrow is the 27th. I have completed all the admission formalities and we are ready to go. Am keeping all my fingers and toes crossed.

431 more to go.

Day 65 : Colours!

Over the last couple of weeks, when the film crew was in town and we spent long hours over our computers, Madam would join in either with a bunch of crayons or with her own little pink laptop and busy herself with her "work". She used to get so involved that even after we wound up and the crew left Singapore, she would still come every evening and say "It's not sleeping time, it is working time!"

"Working" during post production

Recently her "work" has been all about colouring, and we have noticed that she can stay on for more than two hours at a stretch colouring away. This particularly excites me because, well... I myself used to be like that! I have spent a lot of my childhood immersing myself in the joy of colours and brushes and I loved that she was doing the same!

When we went for our usual Sunday evening outing, she sat through the whole dinner at Ichiban Boshi and coloured away. That got me really excited and in my excitement, I brought her another round of crayons and colour pencils and even a set of water colours. She may be a bit too young for water colours, especially with brushes, but I bought them anyway because well, I couldn't contain my excitement. I guess I imagined she and I painting many paintings together, and I couldn't wait to start.

Colouring away at Ichiban Boshi

For more than an hour, she painted away with her new water colours and I watched. I guess there's something about colours filling up a piece of white paper that's really therapeutic, even if you are not the one doing it yourself. So she painted, I watched.

Painting with her new water colours 

After about an hour of her painting, I told her, "Do you want to stop now? You are working so hard". To which she promptly replied, "No Mummy, I am working so loose". Whatever that means.

So I let her be.

435 more to go.

Day 64 : The People. The Book. The Rain.

It felt like the calm after the storm. The first Saturday, after a long while, when I actually had nothing specific to do - no travelling, no work, no film production, nothing really.

In celebration, I spent the whole morning lounging away at home - with a bit of yoga, a bit of reading, a lot of playing and chatting with Madam.

In the afternoon, we met two friends with their little son at Robertson Quay. The kids enjoyed each other's company - they ran about, played hide and seek, and hugged whenever they felt a surge of love for each other, which was pretty often. I myself hadn't caught up with these friends for a while, so we had our long overdue catch up as well.

After the family outing, the husband and I ventured out, for our own little "date night". I couldn't recollect when was the last time just the two of us went out and spent some time on our own. And that, obviously, was no good. So we went to Chimes and spent an hour or so over a glass of wine for him and a cup of tea for me. And we talked and talked. Or rather, I talked and he listened. It felt good.

By the time we got back home, it was pouring cats and dogs. Rest of the house went off to sleep and I snuggled up by the window with my book "Alphabet Soup for Lovers' by Anita Nair and read it cover to cover in one go. I simply adore her writing! I wish her plots were better - but she makes even a wafer thin plot, like the one in this book, so beautiful with her style!

Sitting there, well past midnight, in the company of the lashing rain that I let stray through the open windows, the accompanying thunder and lightning, breathing in the lovely fragrance of  the soaked earth, with a dreamy book to go along - it felt so perfect and I wished it would last forever.

436 more to go. 

Day 63 : The Bollywood Effect!

It was a very exciting day!

My editor called me up from Mumbai and said that a major post production house has agreed to do the final sound mix and colour grading for our film, pretty much for free! Apparently they watched some of the film as well as the trailer, liked what they saw and in the spirit of supporting independent cinema, they are going to work on it in return for the credits.

It was super, duper exciting! More than them working on the film, I was thrilled that they actually said they liked our little film! I mean these are the guys who have worked on some of the biggest productions from India and have even won national awards previously! And for them to like our work, I must say, I was on cloud nine!

This is one of those situations when you wonder what's the universe is trying to tell you. On one hand, there's the follow up scan coming up which am constantly thinking about and on the other hand, there is all these unexpected goodness.

Maybe it is just saying, "Chin up", so up it shall be.

437 more to go.