The Cards that Life deals us - 1997

The Cards that Life deals us.

March 5^th 97- The whole night was spent tossing and turning. Finally I got out of bed at 3.30am. My breasts were feeling very sore. I put it down to usual symptoms just before my period was due. The rest of the day was spent in misery. I was feeling extremely lethargic and weak. I didn’t eat very much. I didn’t have an appetite the whole day. Later in the evening when I was taking my bath I found that I couldn’t touch any part of my breasts. Both breasts were hard and very sensitive to the slightest touch. I was 39 years old. “I have breast cancer!” I thought aloud.

It is a little known fact but all Indians are aspiring doctors able to diagnose any given symptom!

I called the one person whose judgment I trusted; my sister. She confirmed it was breast cancer (remember she’s Indian too!)  Told me to seek medical attention immediately but since no Gynecologist clinics were open at that time of the night, I forced myself to get to bed for that much needed rest.

Needless to say I didn’t sleep much that night either, psyching myself up for the worse. Headed to Ampang Puteri at 8.00am.The receptionist said they had 4 gynecologists; 1 male and 3 women and I needed to make an appointment in advance before consultation.

“I need an appointment TODAY!” I didn’t want to delay treatment any further. I had read and heard from various sources that breast cancer can be treated if detected early.

“The only one available at such short notice is Dr Azahar, the male doctor. Most women prefer a female doctor for ‘womenly matters” That’s fine!” I sighed with relief. I was not picky whether it was a male or female groping my breasts as long as it was ‘A’ doctor. Making my way to his office I passed the other female gynecologists’ offices. There were at least 20 women waiting in every room. At mine there were 8.

Soon I was sitting opposite him telling him my concerns.

He had an extremely gentle demeanor and in a way I was actually glad that he was the one who was going to break the bad news to me. He listened to my prognosis, diagnosis and course of treatment (remember, I’m Indian) very attentively. He then asked me if I was willing to take a pregnancy test.

I laughed and with great conviction said “No, I cannot be pregnant”

I then went on to tell him my medical history.

In October 1979 while studying in Canada, I became very ill. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong; I complained of severe shooting pain in my legs that left me at most times incapacitated; debilitated to the extent that I couldn’t walk even to the washroom. I will always be very grateful to my university mates; Danya, Tonia and my very dear friend, Sandie Krasin- who saw me through these difficult times.  I was admitted to the hospital almost on a weekly basis over the next 3 months. Besides my physical inhibitions, my condition was also affecting my mental state of mind. I missed a lot of my classes and was finding it difficult catching up with the work. I went through every known test and it all came up ‘zilch! NO KNOWN CAUSE! I went to different doctors in various hospitals but they were all equally dumb founded. At one of these visits, a Doctor said that my symptoms were psychosomatic and I needed psychiatric help. I began to believe that maybe it WAS all in my head until my former housemate Sylvia (a nurse) insisted that I see her family doctor. It has been a while since all this happened, so I can’t recall as to how he discovered that it was an ectopic pregnancy. It might have been a scan. He scheduled me for an operation the very next day because if the ‘growth’ was not removed it would get bigger, rupture and poison my system- i.e. I would die!  After removing the right fallopian tube, there was a lot of scarring in my left fallopian tube caused by medication and previous treatments.

Jan 10^th 1980 (my birthday) I was told “You will never be able to conceive!” I was devastated!

For days, weeks, months even stretching to years, I was thrown into deep depths of depression every time I recalled these words.

“What’s the use of getting married then?” “Why would anyone want to marry me?” “My life is over!” “If I did get married would my husband be willing to adopt?” “Will I be able to love and accept an adopted child as my own? These were just a few among a truckload of thoughts that kept filling my mind during these dark days. Consequently many of my relationships with men suffered. I resigned myself to a life without husband or child.

In retrospect; I was only 20 when this happened. I viewed the situation very naively and was full of hatred for life’s unfairness.

Coming back to Dr A. He listened very patiently and still insisted that I take a pregnancy test. “What about my breasts? “Aren’t you going to examine them first?” I enquired. “All in due course! Let me rule out pregnancy first”. He took a sample of my urine and told me to wait in his waiting room. The 15 minute wait for the results seemed like an eternity.

Finally back in his room, I tried to read his face- no hint of what I was about to hear!

He was very calm when he said “I don’t know if this is good news or bad news, but you are pregnant!” My jaw dropped straight to the floor!

“Me? Pregnant? No! I have breast cancer!”

He told me to undress, put on a gown so he could do an ultrasound scan and show me the growing fetus.

“Me? Pregnant? NO! I have breast cancer!”

He said the scan would be able to tell how far into the pregnancy I was.

“ME? PREGNANT? NO! I HAVE BREAST CANCER!”

Even though this was the only phrase going through my head, I changed and lay on his examining table. He spread cold gel on my tummy and rubbed it with a torch like object. Immediately I could see my uterus on the screen and ‘a moving mass’. He started measuring various parts of this ‘mass’ off  the screen and concluded that I was already close to 3 months in my pregnancy.

3 MONTHS?!

“Me? Pregnant? No! I have breast cancer!” thoughts were replaced with “OH S***!! A breast cancer diagnosis would be a lot easier to deal with!”

When I finally calmed down (I am an actor AND an Indian, so I was quite the drama queen)

Dr Azahar told me that I should go home and digest all that had happened (if only it was that easy to make this go away). He said to come back within a week since the first trimester of the pregnancy was coming to an end. If I wanted to terminate the pregnancy, I would need to do it quickly.

I went home in a daze looking at my tummy the whole time until I reached home. I fell on my bed and cried buckets. So many thoughts kept racing through my head; How was I was going to deal with this? Was I going to be able to financially support me AND a child? How do I break the news to my parents? How would they react to this news?

This took a good part of the day and only by nightfall did I call my sister. She was silent at first and then asked me what I was going to do. I told her I hadn’t the foggiest idea and got ready for bed. “Sleeping on it might help” Lying there I kept rubbing my tummy and it felt so surreal knowing that I had a living ‘person’ inside of me. I felt it move (I know that this is not possible but I DID feel it move!). Tears rolled down my cheeks but this time it was tears of JOY! All these years I had yearned for a child and now I was actually having one. I started to imagine all the things we would do together; the birthday parties that I would organize for him/her, the story telling sessions, the games we would play, the cooking, the cleaning, the candle stick making!- I had it all planned out. With those pleasant thoughts I soon drifted into a deep sleep.

Breaking the news to my parents; they were in India for about 4 months visiting relatives when all this happened. Mum came back first. When I told her she was overjoyed. She was going to have a grandchild to dote on. Dad got back soon after. I was already in my 6^th month but funnily enough I was not ‘looking pregnant’ just ‘fat!’ My tummy was a slight ‘bump’.

Telling Dad was the hardest for me. He being a respected elder in the community and I was not sure how he would react to the news. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him in case it got too emotional so I opted to write him a letter: it was 10 pages long with me rambling on and on about how I would understand if he did not approve etc.

It was a Sunday when I went to my family home. My Dad was at the temple so I left the letter on his desk. I then sat on the sofa to watch some TV. My Dad came home shortly after. I decided to get on home because I didn’t want to be around when he read the letter. Just as I was about to leave, a strange thing happened. I was still on the sofa when Dad came towards me, bent down and kissed my tummy and told me he loved me. I come from a family who is very open and loving so kisses and hugs were common. This action in itself was not what was strange. It was the fact that he kissed me on my tummy. I froze! I looked at my sister. She froze! I thought “Did he already know? How?” I quickly got up and left. An hour later my phone rang and I saw it was from my family home. For the second time that day I froze. I dreaded answering it because I did not know what my Dad’s reaction would be. As the ‘Gods’ were with me on this one, my Dad said he was supportive of my decision to keep the baby and not to worry about what the community had to say as it only concerned us. He like my mum was ecstatic that he was going to be a grandfather. It is funny what parents want at the end of the day; a grandchild!

Due to my advanced age at pregnancy which sometimes has its own set of complications Dr A scheduled monthly check-ups so that, should there be any, he would have been able to address them quickly. My due date was Oct 16^th. In my 4^th month check up I wanted to know the sex of the child. It was a boy. I thought it was important that when I was talking to the fetus I would not confuse the child and give him/her a complex. The circumstances were hard enough as it was and didn’t want to add trauma to it all.

My pregnancy was a breeze and I enjoyed every waking and sleeping moment. I called him Hariharan –a combination of Lord Krishna and Lord Shiva’s names. I also was an avid fan of a world renowned Gazhal singer who shared the same name so thought it was a good choice since just like the miracle of getting pregnant, maybe some talent would miraculously get passed on to my baby. What a strange thought!

I did not suffer from morning sickness (albeit that one day when I felt horrible and thought I had breast cancer) no nausea, no swollen legs, no cravings for special foods other than the ones I had even BEFORE the pregnancy. However I was concerned that I did not ‘look’ the part. I was not ‘showing’ like some of the women I met in Dr A’s waiting room that at 3 or 4 months in their pregnancy looked like they had swallowed a beach ball and waddled around like ducks. Dr A reassured me that there was nothing amiss. He said I had an inverted uterus – an inverted uterus??? What the hell does that mean? I ‘ll have a BUMP on my back?!!!

This fact alone had its advantages!

Nobody suspected that I was with child. I carried on with my work without any prying inquisitive questions from anyone.

I shot a TV soap opera called “The City of the Rich”. I played a nurse who was conniving and delved in the black market trade of selling new born babies born out of wedlock to rich folks who could not have one of their own. To this day the producers don’t know the irony of that story line.

I acted in “Kuala Selangor”. Manomaniam played my drunken husband who was the ‘mandor’ (leader of the workers) of the rubber estate. In one scene he had to slap me on my face and I had to fall to the ground. We did many takes; he always ‘slapping’ close to my face (being the TV medium you can ‘cheat’ the slapping) but there was one take when his hand landed hard on my cheek sending me reeling to the floor. No prizes for guessing which take was selected! When I got back I was so worried that I had somehow hurt ‘little’ Hari. I hadn’t told anyone at the set that I was 8 months pregnant. I made an appointment to see Dr A the next day just to be sure and all was well!

I was paranoid about telling too many people. I thought it would jinx the pregnancy so I only informed people on a ‘need to know bases’.

The first were all of my working colleagues at Instant Café Theatre Company. They were so supportive, loving and above all, non-judgmental. They became very protective over me and made sure that it was not too strenuous for me when performing at shows from then on. Patrick (Teoh) told me that if I gave birth on the scheduled date, he and my son would share the same birthday. Wow! More talent rubbing off on my son!

I continued with my daily routine, doing shows, attending plays and going to various functions.

Oct 16th- Lead up to this day was filled with joy and trepidation; However on the day itself, I went into a deep sleep as soon as an epidural was administered and was snoring away. (to the readers-Give me a break! I hadn’t slept for over 36 hours) It was so loud that some of the other mothers in their respective delivery cubicles were getting annoyed and complained to the nurses. My poor sister who was my birthing partner tried to stop the ‘thunderous sounds’ but was at wit’s end. She was also very tired as she had been with me at the hospital for over 13 hours. She did what any human would have done in that situation; she went to the canteen to have tea!

Little after 7pm, she came back to a flurry of activity. The nurses had been trying to wake me up for more than half an hour. They were highly distressed because I had become violent and started hitting them and in a low exorcist voice said “GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE! I WANT TO SLEEP!”  Dilation was 10cm and my son was ready to make his exit.

The nurses told my sister she was their last resort and pleaded with her to get me up. She started shaking me and yelling “SHANTHI!WAKE UP! YOU HAVE TO GIVE BIRTH NOW!

I think if I hadn’t woken up it would have been the first time in the history of the world where a mother slept through child birth! (Hmm..I wonder if that would have gotten me into the Guinness World of Records!)

“SHANTHI! IF YOU DON’T WAKE UP I WILL SLAP YOU, OKAY!’ did the trick. I sat up wide eyed with my sister glaring down on me.

 Dr A arrived minutes later accompanied by his wife who was also a gynecologist.

‘Would you mind if I stayed and assisted the delivery?” she asked with a sweet smile on her face. TWO doctors! “Of course not! Why should I as long as I am only charged one fee!” I replied with an equally sweet smile.

All that rehearsing of the birthing process earlier in the day went straight out the window.

Three pushes and he slid out the birth canal like in a slide; WHOOSH! Weight: 7.5kg. Date: Oct 16^th 1997 Time: 8.55pm. He arrived as scheduled!

Ahhh! FINALLY I can get some sleep!

At the time of this writing, Hari is 13 years, and 8 days.

I guess we never know what cards life will deal us!