Mel's Story

MY STORY

Don’t ask me why I did this. Don’t ask me why this happened to me despite having a life that everyone envied. Don’t judge me as you don’t know the real reason why. People around me always tell me how lucky I am to live such a happy and carefree life but they don’t know all of this was just a facade. What people don’t know is that I have another side of me that is only for me to know. I have kept a big secret from people around me especially my family and friends. 

It started when I fell sick for days and had even vomited blood, that was when I decided to go to the hospital to get a checkup. I had my blood taken to be tested then waited for the results. I thought it was just a normal flu people get every day and I would be given medicine for it but little did I know, in a few hours my life would change. When the nurse told me to go inside the doctor’s office, the adrenaline came rushing. I sat down on one of the chairs in the room and what the doctor told me made my world crash.

 “I don’t know how to say this but you have a growing tumour in your brain and you only have 3 months to live”.

I said “Okay, We could carry out surgery right?”

 

The doctor told me it was impossible as it would be a life threatening surgery and it could kill me instead of curing me. I was really devastated because all my hopes and dreams were crushed. I didn’t want anyone to know as I was afraid that they would feel sorrowful.

As I was sick often, obviously I should be resting but I didn’t want my parents to know so I went to school regardless of feeling pain. I could not concentrate in class and on numerous occasion, I was late to hand in my assignments. When the exam week came, I didn’t get to complete most of my exam papers since the pain in my head started to get stronger every day. 

When it was the day of the results to come out, I was extremely nervous as I know I would not succeed all my subjects with flying colours. As I was heading to the classroom, my homeroom teacher called me to her staffroom to talk about my results.

“Is something wrong? Why are your results dropping suddenly at the most important year in your life? You used to get A’s in your exams but what happened?”.

“It’s nothing miss, I think I didn’t do enough revision. I promise you that I will get higher marks in the end of year examination compare to now”. 

“That is if I would still be alive by then” , I thought sadly to myself.

As the school bell rang, I went straight home and what I didn’t expect was my parents to sit on the sofa with my result in my mother’s hands. I was expecting them to get angry at me but I was surprised when they said, “It’s okay honey, you will do better next time. I believe in you”.

When my mum said that I cried and said I was sorry that disappointed them. They encouraged me to do better next time but the secret that I kept from them suddenly crossed my mind. That day I decided to tell my parents that I have a tumour in my brain, saying they were overwhelmed with sadness would be an understatement. Mother cried all night while father told me it was going to be okay and that he would do anything to get the tumour out. He called his friend who was a doctor and told him about my condition. Miraculously, his friend said that he’ll be willing to do the surgery but it could be life threatening. At first I didn’t want to do it but after all the thoughts of leaving my parents behind, not having the chance to fulfil my dream, I decided to go along with the operation even though it could cost me my life.

After 6 hours in the operating theatre, 24 hours of unconsciousness and a month in the hospital, it turned out not to be a waste of time as it was a successful surgery. After a week of rest, I can finally go to school, see my friends and live the life of a healthy person.

From the day I got diagnosed, all I ever thought was ‘ what do I want more than anything in this world’,  I spent weeks trying to figure it out but I was so busy keeping my secret from everyone that I don’t realise all I ever wanted was in front of me all along. 

It took me to be diagnosed with a tumour to realise that my family’s love was enough for me to fight for my life and also my friends’.