A deep low in the midst of my highs...

 

Around September - October 2020, I suffered a set back.

After Chemo #4, my arm muscle pains increased to the extent that swelling was developed in both arms. It was later discovered that I’d been experiencing Chemotherapy induced venous thrombosis. 

Simply put, it means that my veins were too thin and the chemo drugs were burning them as they passed through them- the tiny tunnels. Such a thing causes clots being formed which hinders the blood flow and might as well cause serious damage if the clots move to a vital organ. The fact that it wasn't in my deep veins but was on both arms located in the superficial veins was the silver lining. However, this was accompanied by increased neuropathy aka sharp pains and numbness in my hands, arms, feet.

I still shiver when I remember those days when my right arm was swelled up and was killing me! I used to apply a balm, get a crepe bandage. And at nights was found trying to put my baby to sleep, carrying him around, crying as he cried. 

In hindsight, I think my weeping was more out of helplessness than the pain or his crying. I felt extremely vulnerable and hurt on the fact that my dear family wasn't looking at this and helping me out. It was just okay for them to suggest that I should take painkillers and carry on with my baby duties. 

It just angers me even today on how our society (more of Indian society) typecasts the roles of men and women. Just to put out bluntly, a woman goes through a lot while getting the baby to the world as such. And on top, after birth, it is assumed she is the primary caregiver for the new born. Nobody asks the father to reprioritize and pay attention to the new member, leave the woman who's still recovering from the post partum. 

Anyways, when the pains were unbearable, my husband stepped in to help with the night duties. We would both sleep in the babies room, we woke up or I would wake him up sometimes and we would cater to the baby. I could clearly see that it was becoming overwhelming, for both of us. He was working during the day and those work days were pretty packed! And at night he would have bad sleep due to the constant waking up in between.

To think rationally about it, what can a poor guy do. He has a life to live on his own as well. And having an ailing wife with a new born on the verge of being colic, isn't the best situation to be in. When I was in my empathic mode, I used to think on how must he feel about coming home from a tiring day to the endless crying of the baby and my taunts about how he's not doing enough. We were just on different perspective space.I Ivividly remember my husband had a presentation at his work and it was a big thing. He actually had somehow got himself looped up on 3 such presentations and the ambitious kinds he is - he really wanted to do a great job at it. On the final day, there was a dinner hosted and he wanted to attend the dinner. My day nanny left in the evening as usual and I was alone with the baby. The baby had one of the crying sessions and I was crying with him that time due to the pain I was going through as well. Perhaps a few tears were extra owing to the fact that husband stayed on for drinks after dinner and came home late, just when I thought we needed him. 

It was just a bad phase - a deep low for me after the radical positivity highs I was having. But what it did for me was stress upon the significance of laying family values, made me understand (hopefully) that despite being a family, we still have individual lives and none of us can force the other to make choices. We can surely influence but the choice has to be individual.