"What's there in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Juliet, I don’t agree.
On a winter morning of February, I noticed, a swelling on my neck. My voice was hoarse for sometime, as well. Google diagnosis started ...’WebMD’ did the trick – ‘Run to Gurmeet. Forget health scheme - after all the neck is mine’
Fine needle picked up a crab- doctor explained. I was not much scared. I was aware beforehand; it could probably a species of crab – thanks to Google. Crabs are expanding their territories nowadays, so are the traps for them. So relax!
My home was overcrowded that evening (Proud to own a bunch of friends). Faces remained pale; eyes struggled to conceal the tears. Silence pertained between the words.... For next few days; telephonic conversations were stuck in silent sighs, sobs or screams, from the distant corners of earth. Many a time, I lost half of my energy in consoling the other person and convincingly explaining that 'it has a good prognosis'.
I realised, all the issues are concentrated on one single word which described the illness. That one word has immense capability to make anyone sweat out. It has created dreaded scars in almost everyone's mind. Rarely people witnessed the victim coming out of it well or even if it happened, later on surrendered to the relapses. The loss witnessed has greater impact on the human mind than the positive outcome. “Cancers” have created the impression of reckless crabs hesitant to leave their hold on the victim. Although, the advances in medical field help in early detection and cure, the scare of the name resists to vanish. When the whirlwind of tensions settled, I wished, the simpler and easily curable forms of scary ‘C’ got renamed with a name opted from a different constellation other than the crab shaped 'Cancer' or with a name more appealing to the mankind -something like an 'Apple' or a ‘Strawberry’.
I asked myself ‘What if I was caught by a more aggressive crab?’ It could definitely be stressful. But...the only option will be, get it treated as early as possible and wait for things to fall in place again. Being scared will not save me in some way. So being cool is a better deal. I can't let the fear of the illness kill me than the illness itself.
Illness was there with in me for a long time, surfacing of the symptoms caused it to get noticed. So, no matter, face it, someday it may subside once again and hibernate within, if not – no option left out than learning to live with it. Better cope up with it, with a never fading smile.
On a lighter note,
Let me tell I had ‘Papillary Thyroid Strawberry’.
Yeah....you smiled. That is what I wished for....
Let’s go cool about ‘life’. We have only present moment to live. So keep this beautiful moment out of worries. Live life with unconditional love - forgive, forget and move on. Let’s live life without being carried away by the ups and downs.
Living one day at time will make everyone say "life is beautiful".