Dear Chemo
My name is Anna and I'm sixteen years old I have chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. I am not an optimist or a pessimist but a realist; however I hope somehow you'll make me better. I love to play on swing sets and dance in the rain. I can't do that anymore. I'm too sick. I stare at four white weary walls all day, every day. The stuffy smell of bleach fills my nose but I've become used to it. I hear the constant sound of sliding doors; opening, closing, opening, closing. I used to feel pain but lately I've been too drugged to notice. I try not to be a burden. I try to cause as little of trouble for people. I'm trying... I just want to be a normal girl.
I sit in a dreary dead room full of pity and sadness. The walls are a cliché children's story book; ferocious lions with mains that look like the golden sun shining upon the Earth, groups of monkeys chuckling to themselves about something which probably isn't that funny, ginormous elephants as grey as the pavement and a giraffe as tall as a skyscraper towering over everything else. All of these animals painted to the walls try to paint a picture of joy and happiness; the paint is peeling and cracking as are the feelings of joy and happiness that try to shove down our throats. The odour of cheap disinfectants surround me and the sound of children playing with plastic cars and dolls rises from the corridor in the distance. They try to make this place feel like it's all rainbows, unicorns and candyfloss. It's not. It's a hospital. It's an oncology ward. It's chemotherapy. The injection of drugs into a system to murder cancer cells as well as some of the good ones. It is a curse sent from the heavens to kill the devils which are tearing people apart limb by limb; the sacrifice is a few angels must lose their lives too. Chemotherapy is not a bag full of daisies and petals; I wish everyone would stop trying to glamourize it. The cold, hard, brutal truth is... It will kill you.
The needle slowly pierced one of my veins in my lower arm. I watched as the drugs began slowly walking the path from the IV bag along the plastic tubing and as they broke into a sprint towards the end of the tubing until they had reached my body. In my opinion chemotherapy doesn't hurt; the side effects cause the most pain. Not only physical pain but emotional too. The bag drains slowly, drop by drop, and I'm starting to feel unaware of my surroundings; I feel drugged. I find this to be the worst part of the chemo. I feel like a ghost, like my body is still present in this world but my mind is off somewhere else. As the tube bleeds out the final drops of the drugs the nurse reappears and begins to slowly remove the needle from my arm. "Well done sweetie. Another session over with. You'll be right as rain in no time!" she said in her overused cheery but not mutual voice. It's funny because nurses have one of the most morbid and saddening jobs yet they always have to act the cheeriest. Act. Still feeling ghost like I gently stand myself up and once I've recovered my balance I begin the journey along the "happy" never ending corridors of the oncology paediatrics ward. Paintings of trees and sunshine, sand and waves, animals and toys plaster the walls. Eventually I reach my room with four white weary walls; no animals or sunshine trying to convince me everything is happy. My own little cove. I collapse on the bed and fall straight into a deep sleep. Chemo takes a lot out of me. However another session is over.
I sit about too exhausted to do anything. Standing up has become such a task and it's making me wonder what energy actually feels like. I am my chemo IV bag; I was once full but now I have become the few drops at the bottom of the bag struggling to push their way to the person's body. I'm struggling. I've not always been like this.. An indefensible, innocent girl swinging on a swing set without a care in the world. Long, luscious, light hair flowing down her back like water in a waterfall. Her sea green eyes glistened as the sun's rays hit her delicate face. Her pale peach dress swirled in time with her enthusiastic movements. The picture of pure, polished beauty. Sadly this picture began to fade when that little girl, only the age of ten, was told she had cancer. She began a bucketful of drugs which did not only take the colour from her once rosy cheeks but it also stole her innocence. Today this little girl lies in a hospital bed; what once was a head full of long, luscious, light hair flowing down her back like water in a waterfall is now an exposed scalp filled with self-consciousness. The spark of beauty still on this naked scalp is hidden away with bandanas and scarves. The little girl's sea green eyes which used to glisten as the sun's rays hit her delicate face have now become polluted oceans which remain dull as the dim hospital lights hit her broken face. The little girl's pale peach dress which once swirled in time with her enthusiastic movements has been put far away into the closet and has been replaced with blood stained, washed out, tattered pyjamas which only follow her frail body as the actions of the nausea and vomiting continually get worse and worse. The picture of purse polished beauty has become a scrap of paper worn out and in need of being thrown out. That little girl was me. This is what I have become.
