I'll just be the thirteenth clown

“If there are twelve clowns in a ring, you can jump in the middle and start reciting Shakespeare, but to the audience, you'll just be the thirteenth clown” wrote Adam Walinsky. Today I feel like the 13th clown. The other 12 are the ones who have been pounding me with all sorts of reasons to go for 12 chemos, be they emotional, medical, rational or even commercial. I can keep spouting all my reasons for stopping but to the world I will remain the 13th clown no one hears.

This morning we went to see Dr Dholkar my Tibetan Doc who let me down this time by stating loud and clear before chemo 1 that Hodgkin's responded well to chemo and we should go for it! Today when we asked her whether we should stop at 8 or go for 12, she laughed in her inimitable way and said: Go for 12 if the doctor says so, I will make you some special anti poison medicine. Voila! In these few words she managed to convey both sides of the coin: follow the protocol but yes its is poison. What she is more concerned about is the bone marrow as the cure lies there. If Ranjan's bone marrow recovers from the onslaught of the slow and continuous poisoning, and kicks in 100% then we are out of the woods.

I am reading a novel set during World War I and it has graphic descriptions of the effects of mustard gas on young soldiers. It is frightening and to think that mustard gas is the progenitor of chemotherapy and you are injecting it directly in the veins of a person, I leave it to you to decide what damage it does. Anyway 12 it is and then basta! I want my man back and so that I can rid him of all the poison and rebuild his immunity system so that it can take care of any remaining cancer cells for the rest of his life.

I for one know that my research on chemotherapy has convinced me that I would never allow it to enter my body should my genetic imprint take me that way. I will swallow a kilo of almond kernels a day if needed but will not allow anyone to poison me.

I agree to be the 13th clown and keepon reciting my Shakespeare which in this case is my total aversion and non acceptance of chemotherapy even if no one hears me. I wish there was Google and information technology when both my parents were diagnosed with cancers and theirs were cancers that are not the ones that respond well to chemo. They had lungs and colon cancers. The only redeeming factor is that in both cases we did not go the chemo way: mom refused treatment (she listened to her intuition) and pa died just after surgery! I am so glad I did not subject them to chemo. In Ranjan's case he had one of the 3 cancers that supposedly respond well! There was no logical argument my Cartesian mind could come up with and no one can pitch apricot kernels and hemp against the fancy sounding chemo drugs and the drama around it. I capitulated, keeping my cards up my sleeve as I know chemo cycles have an end.

However I will continue to share whatever I can find on chemo and expose the best of my ability the conspiracy that keeps this form of treatment alive and kicking with the help of big bucks and vested interests. I am not saying do not go for chemo. What I want to convey is that you should be fully aware of the treatment and its consequences, short and long term, and of alternatives and make an informed choice.

So to be continued....