In Continuum.

My mother does frequent full-body check-ups annually. She does it in Taiwan because it is cheaper there, and she visits her regular doctor over there most of the time. She dragged my father along because, well, my mother has always been the most health-conscious person in the family. She is almost a vegetarian, eating very little meat and focuses the bulk of her diet on vegetables and fruits. It's not that she is secretly a fruit bad or that she loves animals too much to kill them really. She just feels that avoiding meat, any kind of meat, is better for the health in the long term. I suppose the cholesterol in meat has got something to do with it, but I suppose I personally cannot imagine a life without bacon. Anyway, my mother is probably the most healthy person in the family, and these full-body check-ups aren't anything to worry about, or at least for me. After all, my mother has been like a straight A student at such health screenings for the past years, always scoring relatively well other than a few minor hiccups here and there. However, it doesn't matter if you are scoring full marks or just over the threshold of an A - you are an A student, no matter what. That is my mother, a grade A student at health screenings.

A week or two ago, my mother flew back to Taiwan to run some errands, with the health screening being one of them. She does that every year, so I wasn't exactly too concerned. Amongst many other things were the new house that we bought, checking up on my uncle, and a couple of other minor businesses. Besides, I think my parents have been married for a long enough time to warrant some time alone with each other. Nobody wants to be tied down to their children for the rest of their lives, right? So last Friday, or was it Thursday, my mother went for a health screening early in the morning, and the results were available for pick-up almost straight after she was done. The results, however, weren't exactly that comforting. The doctors found some kind of growth, like a tumor, at the base of her neck. No one was sure what they were, but the doctor immediately scheduled a blood test on the following Monday. My mother called me after the health screening, starting the Skype conversation with some trivial matters about cooking earlier just so that my sister could cook her own food when she returns from work, and asked if I have been keeping the house intact - like I said, trivial things. Then she told me about the news, and I couldn't stop thinking about it ever since.

It seems like everybody is getting tumors now, as if it is some kind of a trend that everybody wants to catch on to. Now my mother has some kinda tumor, my uncle's cancer is due to tumors, and it just seems like everybody else wants one too. It is certainly not something I wish upon my loved ones, but what can we do about it anyway. I remained calm for the most part, and I haven't talked to my sister about it just yet. I don't suspect that she is still kept in the dark about this anyway, but then it's not like we've addressed the issue with each other. Or rather, my sister never really address any issues with each other - ever. I am glad that my sister and I are not a married couple, because it'd be the worst couple around, truth be told. Anyway, I called my mother up over the weekend to check up on her condition, despite the fact that I knew nothing about what was going on. She didn't tell me a whole lot about the situation, nothing more than the fact that she could only get a blood test by Monday, at the very earliest. I wanted to know more, but even the doctors couldn't do anything more other than that. It sucks to sit at home and not know what is going on with your loved ones. Then again, it is probably worse for my mother, knowing that there are things in her body that aren't supposed to be there.

I asked her about the options that she have, and she said that the doctor told her to get the blood samples first to determine if the tumors are benign or malignant. Here is the thing that I do not understand: why would doctors advice the patients to "observe" the tumor if it is benign? My mother was told by the doctor that if the tumor is malignant, then she should have it removed. That is a fair enough diagnosis, because it makes a lot of sense, right? Then the doctor went on to tell my mother that if the tumor is benign, then we should just wait and observe and, well, see what happens. OK, that is just something that doesn't make any sense to me, and that is what got me furious for the most part. It is a tumor we are talking about, and there is a reason why it is called a "growth" - it grows. I'm not saying that I am a doctor, or a tumor expert or anything like that. Hell, I haven't even taken biology before, and the only medical information I know are from House. I know next to nothing about tumors, but I know this: if it isn't supposed to be there, it isn't supposed to be there. If there is a growth in the body that isn't supposed to be there, it is meant to be cut out and removed. I don't care if it is benign or not, just cut the damn thing out! If there is a chance to remove a dormant volcano from a village, the villagers would be elated to hear that I am sure. They won't care if the volcano hasn't erupted in the past sixty years. What if it does tomorrow? Yeah, exactly.

I guess the doctors haven't lived right next to a damn volcano before, and they probably don't understand that very well. Here's the thing, what if we observe for the next year and it grows to become malignant? Now what, cut it out? Well, why didn't we cut it out in the first place when we found it? It's not like a third arm when it just hangs there and not grow anymore, you know. It is there because there is a problem, and it demands to be removed. It's like seeing an injured soldier on the battlefield, and the medics tell the other soldiers to not pull him out of there because he's only been shot in the stomach and not the head and, thus, not going to die anytime soon. "Let's see what he does next! Maybe he will make it out of there himself". It doesn't work that way! He needs to be pulled out of there or he will die out of blood loss! Maybe this isn't the best analogy around, and the tumor isn't going to miraculously bleed itself out and die - which would be great. This is something that could very potentially develop into something worse than it is. It is easy for them to say, because they are not going to be responsible half a year down the road when the tumor develops into something malignant. I mean, even a malignant tumor must have developed out of something perfectly normal, right? I might be wrong, but I can't be wrong about this: it's not supposed to be there, cut it out.

The blood samples came back today, and two person called me about the results back to back. My aunt called me first to tell me about the situation, but I wanted to hear from my mother herself. She called almost right after my aunt hung up, and she told me that at this point in time, the doctor is deeming it to be something normal, and that we have nothing to worry about. Supposedly, people around her age do get such growths often, and she quoted a medical term in chinese which meant nothing to me. She just kept repeating that, and I was frustrated that she couldn't understand all the medical terminologies that she was churning out. On the phone, she asked me to look up a bunch of ways to decrease cholesterol via food intake, which is strange because my mother is already taking very little meat. She's not even 50KG! Anyway, that's not the point. The next scheduled check-up is in the March to April period, and she'd have to make a trip back again at that time to have it examined further. Yes, that is a full two to three months away from now. I don't care if it is nothing serious at this point, what if it develops into something else within that period of time? It unnerves me, but my mother seems nonchalant about it, oddly.

All this teasing with death makes me somewhat uncomfortable, somehow. People grow old, people get sick, and people die eventually. I understand that, and I suppose I have been equipped with everything that I need to deal with everything that life is going to throw at me at this point. Yet, when it does happen around you, even if it is just a tease, you cannot help but feel uncomfortable about it. And as for my uncle, who has been going through the experimental treatment, he is doing rather well. Surprisingly well, at that. He is supposed to go through six to eight treatments, with the last two being done only if necessary. He is about to go through his sixth treatment, and everything seems somewhat optimistic at this point. Measurements are done once every two treatments, and the last result (after the fourth treatment was done) indicated that 50% of the cancer cells were terminated in his body. That seems like a really good news, and my uncle is really hanging in there by a thick thread of his stubbornness. He is a fighter, and he's never ever been the person to give up so easily. These are just some of the good news out of all the bad news, I suppose. People are getting sick around me, but at the same time they are doing better than expected, you know? I worry, and I worry a lot. But at the same time, I trust in numbers and statistics. These are the things that will get me through.

In times like these, a lot of people would probably turn to prayers for comfort, you know. I don't want to turn this into some theological argument, but let's just say that I did not turn to that for any forms of comfort. I didn't see a point of doing that, because it isn't going to make anybody around me get better just because I mumble a few words to a being of higher order. If there is a plan for something to happen, then it will happen. Shit happens, you know, and we cannot prevent that just because we pray for somebody to feel better. However, I sought comfort in knowing that the numbers are not against me, that people have been through the same situation and came out on the other side just fine. I want to hear statistics, and I want to know case studies. I want to know what the doctors are doing, and I want to know that they are qualified to do their jobs. I don't see a point in praying, because that does not make me feel better at all. Praying makes me feel worse, because it makes me feel like I am out of control, that it is up to somebody else to make me feel better. Well, instead of praying, I figured, I thought learning more about what is going on seems to make more sense, you know? So I looked around for answers, and I will continue to do so. In the mean time, everybody, just hang in there. Let's pull through, let's get the hell out of here.