💌 411. Sentenced to death

The doctor, with the most stern expression that I had ever seen, said, “Ma'am, we have done our best so far. There is nothing more we can do for you. Even going to a larger hospital would not help. Now go home and have something delicious, your favorite, taking a good rest.” In fact, at that moment, what he said was like a final diagnosis for me, but consumed by the sole thought that I had to survive somehow, I completely failed to recognize it and pleaded once again with tears.

"Wait, sir, I can not even drink water. Please save me. It is not about eating. As I cannot pass stool, even a small amount of intake twists my stomach, causing intense pain. If only I could have a bowel movement! Please prescribe any medication to help with it." However, he remained silent with a somber expression. "Doctor, please..." No matter how much I pleaded, he remained silent. 

Any entreaty had no effect. My mouth ran dry and my insides seemed to be burning. He just shook his head silently. "Doctor, if it is not possible, could you at least prescribe some painkillers again, something stronger? The previous ones did not work at all. Please." “...” The doctor made no reply, refusing to prescribe even analgesics. 

Even the nurses just looked at me with pity in their eyes. “God, what on earth is happening to me? Even going to a larger hospital would not help?” It felt like I was wandering in an utterly stifling darkness with all paths blocked.

However, as the doctor said to me, “Good-bye!”, I reluctantly stood up and managed to calm my nearly bursting heart. In a suffocating, heavy silence, they were turning away from me, saying nothing more. When I turned around to go home, leaving them behind, the tears that I had been holding back poured out. I took labored steps to the door of the doctor’s office and was about to go out.

A murmur of conversation between the doctors and nurses broke the deep silence, reaching my sensitive ears. I hurried outside, but I heard their words clearly, as if spoken right beside me. “Tsk, tsk, Her cancer spread so extensively throughout her whole body, spreading all the way outside of the anus. I have never seen a case like her, though I have been in medicine for so long. How could the cancer spread even that far?”

“Oh, geez! If her blood pressure were normal, she could try a colostomy. Only then, she could have a bowel movement and eat something, you know." "Was it just the anus? You have seen her throat last time. It was completely swollen like a balloon, filled with the lumps of cancer. Never in my life have I seen such a terrifying cancer."

"Exactly! She must be suffering immense pain but why is it that her family did not take her to a major hospital all this time until her cancer spread throughout her entire body from the throat to the toes? She must be in excruciating pain, unable to even breathe properly. Nay, beyond that, it would be hard just to lie down and moan under such a condition. How could she walk around alone like that?”

"Tsk, tsk! It is not just walking alone. For her to have been alive in such a state until now is medically inexplicable. There would not be anything surprising if she died right now. During the recent examination, I palpated her abdomen and her body is almost rigid, hard as a rock.

Under such a condition, that would be the best choice—just eating what she can, resting at home and passing away. Treatment is of no use.” "Her throat is completely blocked, so is her anus, making defecation impossible. Then, what could she eat, let alone something delicious? In such a state, she might not be able to eat at all. Oh my, it must be unimaginably excruciating for her. What can we do? I am so sorry for her."

"She said she has four children. What to do with those poor kids?" Then, the head nurse's voice filled with sorrow reached my ears. "Heaven seems to be harsh to her. How could such a kind person end up in such a terrible state?" "That is true. How polite and kind was she to us? Each time she visited our hospital to treat her illness, she would not just sit still; she would always help patients with a smile."

"That is right. That was why even some patients asked her if she was a head nurse despite her not wearing a uniform. Oh, How pitiful! I am so sorry for her." They continued speaking, but I could not hear their conversation anymore because it felt as if all my senses were blocked. The look of pity in their eyes was telling me that I was a hopeless case!

After overhearing their whispered conversation, I became certain that I had an incurable illness. “How foolish of me...! Why did I not realize earlier? The doctors could not bring themselves to tell me directly that I had the cancer which had already metastasized to my whole body, because I was desperately pleading that I had to stay alive.

I came to realize that the doctor intended to show my anus to my family to inform them indirectly that I was in a terminal stage of cancer in which even lumps of cancer protruded out of my anus." I began to understand everything that had happened during my last visit to the hospital. "The doctor might have given the shots to the protruding lumps of cancer or to the adjacent site. 

That was why it was so painful that I even screamed in agony for the first time since birth!” As if the pieces of a puzzle were being put together, I was reminded of the desperate moment when I shouted for my husband not to come in, never wanting him to witness my terrible state. "That must have been the reason that the doctor urgently looked for my husband and told him to come in.

Nevertheless, my husband had failed to ever asked the doctor about my condition. As this thought came to mind, I was almost overcome with a sense of disappointment for a brief moment. But then, I quickly offered it up with Semchigo as if my husband worried and cared about me, his wife, out of love, and thought, "No, it was better for him not to hear of my condition. How shocked would he have been to know I was in the terminal stage of cancer!"

“I have heard that when cancer reaches its terminal stage, it can metastasize to various parts of the body but I had never imagined that cancer had been spreading so aggressively throughout my entire body..." Death was quietly closing in on me.