Let Go
“Very bitter feelings!” Chong-Lan furrowed her brow. She said that perhaps because she was quite allergic to medicine, she felt piercing pain all over her body with a particular shot in the treatment. “From my scalp to the bottom of my feet, including my fingers and my lower belly, everything hurts like needles pricking. I grabbed my sister's hands and shouted for help.” In each round, she had to endure ten minutes of agony, then it was chemical injections again, day in and day out without breaks. Chong-Lan said that she kept vomitting. There was this indescribable feeling of discomfort and she could hardly eat anything.
“I didn't feel well at places where there is bodily fluid.” Chong-Lan said that her eyes were sore, her mouth weird and so was her urinary canal. She simply could not sleep well. The most unbearable part for Chong-Lan was the smell of pesticide all over her body. The smell of chemotherapy was very similar to that of pesticide – “very very smelly!” It was not possible to get rid of that irritating odor. When returning home, she could still smell it in her room and in the toilet.
“I just felt it was not that kind of life that I want.” Following this sentence, Chong-Lan closed her eyes. Even though it had been more than one year since she gave up chemotherapy, her fear was still intense and vivid. “After I truly gave up and decided to stop further chemotherapies, I felt so at ease!” Chong-Lan finally had all her stress released.
Nonetheless, it was not easy to make this decision – a seemingly life-or-death choice. In addition to her peace of mind, there was this earnest hope of her family that further treatments might render a better chance of survival, and there was also this prospect that she could have a family with her boyfriend, despite the slim chance of a miracle.
In order to make her final decision, the always-dad-and-mom's-good-daughter “ran away” from home. Chong-Lan told us that in that period she took shelter at her sixth auntie's and refused to answer any phone calls from her father, mother and her eldest sister. “I wanted to think it through – what should I do after all? Should I give up or continue the chemos?” Ten days passed, Chong-Lan had her head clear little by little from all the conflicting thoughts. “I won't be swayed by anybody. I'm going to make my own decision!”
Amid the contrast of continuing and not continuing chemotherapy, Chong-Lan no longer hesitated. “I reckon that we are all gonna get to the last stage, that is, death. So, I decided I wanted to... it doesn't matter I'd live a shorter life, but I wanted to be free and happy!” Chong-Lan said that it was not her desire to suffer just to live longer. She would rather live shorter, yet happily and freely. “So, I decided to give up chemo, but to concentrate my happy days all in this period.” Although giving up chemotherapy, Chong-Lan did not become desperate for her life. Instead, she wanted to make worth every of her living minutes and each of her breathing seconds. Therefore, she always said, “I'm so happy and free, so maybe there's still hope. But even not so, I have to follow the nature's rules all the same.”
When she had made up her mind, Chong-Lan tried to communicate with her family because she loved them the most. “Let's follow the nature's rules!” Chong-Lan told her parents and her sisters that since it failed the first time, how could the second time be more successful? It was risky at the first time and she was even hospitalized in the quarantine. She argued that same things could still be possible at the second time and that perhaps she would have ended her life earlier than giving up chemotherapy. So, let the nature rule. When you are deemed to live, you live.
“I'm the one who's ill. It's better that I make the decision.” Chong-Lan said that she would live as long as the nature allowed; otherwise, when she suffered, others also suffered with her, so it was better to see her being happier. Given that she would arrive at the last stage of her life no matter what, with the only difference being that chemotherapy might have given her more time, she asked her family to accept her decision.
It was hard to describe how sorry she felt that her dream of marriage was broken once again. “But when I think about it, God indeed has mercy on me: He granted me this relationship. The only thing is that I am very sorry to him. We would have had a family, but it ends up like this.”
Since she was a child, Chong-Lan had been the funny jokester in both her parents’ sides of families. Chong-Lan’s eldest sister, who always kept the hope that chemotherapy might somehow turn out to be effective and always encouraged Chong-Lan to continue, said that Chong-Lan was a lovely girl with a good heart. She was thoughtful and cared for others all the time. Even after arriving at Lotus du Coeur, she was still worried about one of her aunts who was financially rather troubled. She kept thinking about giving her some money, but was also worried that her anut might be embarrassed by it. Another example was about her eldest sister’s son. He had to take the college entrance exam in May, and Chong-Lan was concerned that he might be distracted from his exam preparation if she would be gone around that time. Chong-Lan was like a lovely clown. She attracted attention wherever she went and brought happiness to everybody. The atmosphere was always filled with joy when she was around.
Chong-Lan was strong and persistent, and she could endure a great deal of hardships. Right after the surgery and during the two weeks of lying in bed, you could rarely hear her moaning out of pain, even though everyone could see that it was painstaking and felt sorry. Chong-Lan, the extravert and outgoing girl according to her sister, was determined to follow her own guts and to return to the “Chong-Lan” that had been familiarly known to everyone.
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