I went to my winter formal at the time knowing that that Tuesday following the weekend, would forever change my life. I took a bath the Sunday night before we left for UCLA and I looked at my hands. I would never be a neurosurgeon with one hand. My hands were pretty. My mom insisted on holding a photo shoot for my right hand. My friends took me out and we got manicures the week before and ridiculous acrylics with zebra and leopard stripes. I played the piano that week enjoying having a top and bottom hand. I stretched my fingers out on the ivories and crescendoed my way through Bach and Chopin, stopping, finding myself in sobs sitting at the bench facing this beautiful piece a composer had written. This was cancer. 

I realized I was restarting my life yet again. I examined my scar from open heart surgery. It had expanded some and scar tissue had formed against my sternum. I contemplated suicide for a brief moment and then realized what a stupid idea that would be. I moved my hands in and out of the water, spreading my fingers. I had delicate fingers that played the piano and held a tennis racket. I took an oath that night. I realized things were out of my control. 

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For good or for bad I would aim to be patient and learn to ask for help. I hated asking for help. I needed to accept that I was going to have one hand. I wouldn’t change but I’d have to learn to do things differently. I had no idea the severity of my cancer or how long this surgery would preserve my life for. I didn’t know if I’d graduate high school, go to college, get married…my fate was out of my hands. I remember this quote, “If you feel like you’re under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” That was basically how my life felt. My constant battle to be normal and how the closer I got, the more my life changed. 

I went into surgery that Tuesday morning wearing nothing but a hospital gown. We were up at 5 in the morning. I originally left the hotel in pajamas and sat in the waiting room holding both my parents’ hands shaking my knees. When they called me back, my dad walked with me, still holding my hand. The nurse gently started an IV and smiled warmly at me. My doctor and his resident came back and drew a purple line across my right wrist indicating that this was the hand ridden with cancer that needed to be disposed of. After asking me several times if there was any chance I was pregnant my body decided to have a “fuck you” moment and started my period. Blood dropped on the white sterile floor below me and splattered on my feet. Standing up. In front of three male doctors and my dad. On the floor. Character building’s finest. My dad sighed. I was thankful the anesthesia came back and started my cocktail, taking me out of my humiliation misery. But in those moments I thought WHAT ELSE UNIVERSE? WHAT THE HECK ELSE? I have cancer. I’m losing my hand, I started a period in front of physicians who were saving my life. I stopped caring. If this was the worst thing that could happen to me then life would be a breeze. 

“One day it just clicks… you realize what’s important and what isn’t. You learn to care less about what other people think of you and more about what you think of yourself. You realize how far you’ve come and you remember when you thought things were such a mess that you would never recover. And you smile. You smile because you are truly proud of yourself and the person you’ve fought to become.”

Unknown

 I woke up screaming in pain as they pumped me with oxycodone and methadone cocktail mixed with gabapentin. My male nurse was my superhero. Not only was he handling a bleeding, screaming, seventeen-year-old newly amputee menstruating, he also was feeding me vitamins and waffles. I remember you Letty RN-of UCLA’s orthopaedic hospital. My parents stayed in the hotel up the street while my sister slept on the floor next to me in the hospital. As much as my parents were there for me, they were my parents and that was their job. This was her choice to sleep on a hospital floor for her sister. And that’s something I still can’t fathom or ever thank her enough for. I doubt she realizes that I think about it everyday still.

Side note, the world works in mysterious ways. About 9 years after my hospitalization my cousin did his nursing clinical rotations at that same hospital. I also met one of the nurses who worked with the doctors who saved my life on a plane. We’re now Facebook friends.

Life isn’t about comparing yourself to others to be normal. I think we find out who we are based on the seeds life gives us and the flowers we produce based on the battles we are forced to overcome. It’s the process of growing the seeds that determine the characters we have. How we handle stress, bad weather, hardships and despite having elements against us, can dictate how many sunflowers we grow. I think of the book by Demi, The Empty Pot, all the children are given seeds and told that whoever grows the most beautiful flower will get to become emperor. The child renown for having green thumbs receives his seed from the emperor and plants the seed in the most fertile soil. He treats the seed as his baby and the seed doesn’t sprout. He watches over the seed, giving it sunlight, nutrients, and water. He re-plants the seed several times but the seed still doesn’t grow. A year goes by when the children must return to show how fruitful their efforts were in producing the most beautiful flower. All the children appear with prolific results while the child with the most experience comes with an empty pot, ashamed, all his work portrayed for the world to see in a pot full of dirt and a seed. Turns out, all the seeds the emperor had given out had been baked. The green thumbed child was to become the next emperor.

“Despite knowing they won’t be here for long they still choose to live their brightest lives sunflowers”

Rupi Kaur

So do we pretend in order to be normal? Are we just lying in order to be accepted? After losing a limb, I felt like the child with the empty pot. All my efforts, all my failures, all my emotions were raw and exposed for the world to see and it was when my true character was uncovered. When you are being fully dependent on the people around you, you learn a lot of things about yourself. You learn that you are mortal. You learn patience. Most importantly, you learn that the world keeps going on whether you’re ready for it to or not. Turning your negativity into courage is the only way to produce that sunflower. Turns out, we all have a death sentence. I had nowhere to go but up.