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Diagnosis Age: 40
Life is about Joy and Laughter
Being here momentarily
To relinquish the pain
To forget the Cancer
That is ravaging my body.
I wanted to live to see
My little girls grow-up,
To see their beautiful faces,
To hear their voices,
Their laughter.
I wanted to survive a little
Longer without the frustration,
The stress, the pain
Before my life deteriorates.
I wanted to enjoy,
To flourish, to dance,
To laugh, because life is about
Joy and laughter
Til death do us part.
Opening our mind to
Ease the loneliness, the sickness,
The jealousies, one way or
Another in the air.
Life would be facile, adventurous,
Amicable, memorable,
Pleasurable, romantically by
Uniting ourselves.
Until then, we are like a thin wand standing
On the summit of a mountain
Waiting to be blown away
By the baffling winds.
As I await my turn on the
Summit enjoying the rest of my life.
I've been writing poetry since I was 16 years old, but never thought I was one day others would read my poems. I was so depress when I knew I had cancer, I started to write what I felt deep down my heart when my friends started to stay further and further away. I first noticed a blood spot on my brassiere, I didn't pay no mind. It continued for a month, when I decided to make an appointment with a Haitian surgeon. Waiting in the office lobby was frustrating and scary. He started to ask many questions about the family, after examination, he said it was probably a cyst. He scheduled me to have a mammogram, it was negative. He then said it could be removed in the clinic, I opt not to. I wanted to think out it for a while. I ignore the bloody substance and went to a poetry contest in Washington, DC, representing my country proudly. I came home with a bronze medal and merits. Three months past when I went to have a sonogram. The doctor told me it was best to have a biopsy as soon as possible because he did not see any lumps and the brownish substance is not normal. I went and have the biopsy without telling my family at Long Island Hospital, having a doctor friend meeting me there. He was scared and trembling. He realized what could happen, but I was very na´ve, I still did not have a clue. One week later, the doctor told me I had cancer, Ductal Carcinoma in Situ, while he removes the sutures. You can have a lumpectomy or a mastectomy. My mind wonders as he spoke, tears flowing down my cheeks as he continues to explain what would happen. I would have chemotherapy, my hair will fall out, I will lose weight, suppression of the immune system to fight infections. I sat there starting at the pictures on the wall.
What is cancer? This is something I never thought of since my aunt die of cancer six years back. I always thought I would be the next one to have it in the family. But I had no clue about the word cancer. Having cancer at the age of 40 is 1 to 217 according to the experts. Having a family history of breast cancer put me in a greater risk. On my way home, the tear drips on my cheeks like a faucet. The hardest thing for me was telling my five children and mother that I have cancer. It took my doctor friend two hours to calm me down after talking in California with my oldest daughters because I was hysterical.
I had to take my life back. I bought the breast book by Dr. Love and inform myself about this disease invading my body. I decided to have a mastectomy because the cancer might already spread in the lymph nodes, surely it did. I went home with two drainage tubes at my side, which I had to measure the fluid every day. After two weeks, it was removed, my body felt stiff and swelling. It was hard for me to look at myself in the mirror. I felt unbodied, formless, dauntless, not knowing how would I ever face my friend. What would he say? Is he going to love me the same way? If I felt the way I did, than it would be scarier for him. Surely, as months past, he drifts away. The agony of looking at my body made my stomach boil with anger, and that was not the worse thing. When the chemotherapy treatment started in December leaving me violently sick, vomiting, nauseous, diarrhea, stomach cramps, fatigue, for three whole days, which my two little children 6 and 8 to watch their mother, mawkishly. There were times, I had to force myself not to maunder in front of them. I forced myself to go to work wearing a wig as my hair falls out in order to stop divagate. I struggled mentally, physically with my family and children by my side.
Two years has past, trying to live my life as normal as I could, when the neuro-surgeon told me I had a tumor, meningioma in the frontal cranial of my left side of my head, pushing my eye out. Another painful moment I must go through alone with my children, because my mother is now paralyzed. I took courage and face the life as it comes. The tumor in the brain was not cancerous. I may have a big scar on my front left side, but I have my life. I continue to strive with tenacity for my children. I talk to others about cancer whenever I can. Women who started menstruation at the age of 9, never had children after the age of 30, not me I said. I have children at 22 years of age, and menstruated at 13, I'm not at risk, well, think again.
My life had gone down the drain
The day, I perceived I had cancer.
I can not be brief,
My life is hastening away.
Thinking, pensively of all things
That I crave to accomplish
The thought of departing from my children
Beforehand, is not my own.
My little ones will not remember me
As I watched them play innocently
My blood boil with anger.
The indignation, the pain of the
Chemotherapy.
Tears drip down my face.
The grievance, the loneliness overflow.
The think will not be replaced as I glance
At my body in the gloom light.
Stroking the location, can only be
Remembered why Lord,
The question can not be answered.
I sob in agony all alone.
Struggling to keep sane for the little ones.
Restraining my face to smile,
As I embrace every day.
I write poems for them to read
When I'm gone.
Months will past when someone
Will say, she was warm and beautiful.
When I'm gone to the Lord above.
Leaving memories, love, sadness,
Until we meet in Heaven.
Don't be sad or cry for I'm not gone.
In your mind and hearts
I will always stand by your sides,
Be happy and smile,
Without memories I will be gone forever.
Yes, I have cancer. This does not mean I have to stop living. I found someone that does not care that I'm missing a limp or a scar on my head. He loves me for my personality, not for my look. I could stop doing what I use to enjoy with my family and friends. But this disease is part of life, sickness does not fall on trees, but on people. Life goes on whether we like it or not. I'm happy to know my destiny, because it gives me a chance to educate others about cancer, to enjoy my children more, to give those who do not have, to look at life in a different perspective. We can beat this disease, by the way we act, by enjoying the rest of life that the Lord has to giving. The Lord listens to my heart tranquility, quietly, patiently before we meet in Heaven.
