Ester

Chapter 3. 34 out of 36

Telephone communication in Uzbekistan was not the best. I don’t remember how many times I tried to reach Namangan without success. I either got a shrill-pitched signal indicating that the line was busy or it disappeared altogether. That was torture, pure torture and my impatience mounted with each passing day.

Yura offered to call his uncle who lived in Tashkent. Uncle Yakov knew the healer. We reached the uncle. He told us that the healer should be at home in Namangan but that he would soon leave for the hajj, which was right around the corner. It turned out that the healer was a pious Muslim and would travel to Mecca for the annual pilgrimage whenever possible.

By this time, my telephone fever had reached its climax. I don’t remember what day or time it was when Yura, who was holding the receiver, informed me, “We have a connection."

If I had been holding the receiver, I wouldn’t have been able to speak. My whole body felt paralyzed, and there was a lump in my throat. Meanwhile, Yura was already shouting into the receiver, "How do you do. May I speak to Mukhitdin Inamovich? I’m calling from New York, I… Yura Yuabov… Can you hear me?" He stopped to listen and, judging by his tense face, it was clear that the connection was bad. Then he mumbled something and hung up.

"He’s away. He’s gone to Mecca for the hajj. He’ll be back in a month or two."

I fell into a fit of rage. I swore. I kicked the telephone table. I was ready to beat my head against the wall.

"Calm down!" my cousin shouted at me. "Stop acting psychotic!"

"Calm down? Surgery is scheduled for May twenty-first. What shall I do? What? Do I have to make the decision myself?" I shouted in despair.

Yes, it was just three weeks before the surgery, but the main question hadn’t been resolved – whether to have the surgery before consulting the healer from Namangan, and then visit him, or to refuse to have the surgery before seeing him and to wait… to wait… to wait for a month or two or three to see him. What could be harder than waiting? And such a scary wait, with the risk of waiting too long.

That’s what I had to decide. I was the one who had to decide, because Mama was ready for anything. For the first time in her life, she seemed to have become the child, putting her life in my hands, waiting obediently for my decision, not expressing any opinion of her own.

But I was uncertain.

The oncologist insisted on surgery. "At least let her undergo chemo," he tried to persuade me every time I saw him. "The tumor will shrink, and it will be easier to operate."

"Don’t agree," Yura begged me. "Radiation and chemo kill cancerous cells and healthy ones, as well. Then the healer might refuse to treat her."

I hurried back to the oncologist’s. I had decided to tell him the whole truth about our hopes, about the strange healer who had calf’s manure in his arsenal of treatments. I could see Dr. Pace’s embarrassed glance over his eyeglasses.

"I don’t know anything about these practices, but I do believe in facts. Where is the proof?"

"The proof? What about saved lives? Isn't that proof?"

Dr. Pace nodded. "You know about the ones who survived. How about those who didn’t? How many people didn’t?"

I really didn’t know. I couldn’t argue any longer – with the doctor, with myself, with my pain. "Mama," I said, "you need to have an operation. Then we’ll go to visit the herbalist. Do you agree?"

"We’ll do whatever you think is necessary," Mama answered quietly.

It was a warm May morning. The hospital reception area, with its semi-circular window the size of the entire wall, was bathed in sunlight. Small sofas and coffee tables were scattered around. It was quiet and cozy, very cozy. Outside, an equally tranquil panorama spread out before my eyes on that cursed day – green vegetation, cars, people hurrying to the entrance of the hospital… all of them in a hurry, a big hurry. A doctor enters in a sky-blue robe and a nurse in a white one. “They must be in a hurry to cut up someone’s hand,” I thought maliciously. A car arrived. People got out of it. One of them had his hand bandaged. “Here’s their patient.” I wanted to think about anything else, to vent my ill will over my fate on something, to distance myself from my pain and worries. There, in an operating room beyond the closed doors they had been doing something to my mother for three hours now.

Time dragged on unnaturally slowly. It was so quiet in the reception area, so quiet. Almost everyone sat there without moving. Now and then, doctors appeared and sat next to those who were waiting, and they whispered things to each other. I tried to make out what they were talking about. Some of then listened, nodded, and smiled. That meant everything had gone well. One woman leaned against the back of the sofa and covered her face with her hands, crying. Another jumped to her feet, uttered a cry and rushed out. Grief, grief, grief all around…

Then it was my turn. Dr. Pace was approaching me. It seemed to me that he was walking very slowly, as if pondering something, rubbing his wrists. Then he looked at me, and again, it was that kind glance of his that I was now afraid of.

"How did it go?" I don’t know whether I actually said it or just moved my lips.

"She was great. She fell asleep right away. I completely removed her breast."

I waited for him to continue. I had to know. Even in my mind I tried to avoid the hated word. He understood. He was a doctor. He had to tell me the whole truth, pure and unvarnished.

"At the base of her breast I removed 36 lymph nodes. Unfortunately, almost all of them were… somewhat hard and paler than usual."

Everything was clear. I would receive the official results after the lab tests, but I had no doubts about the diagnosis of the experienced surgeon.

"Valera," I could feel him tensing up. Poor man, what a difficult profession. "It’s up to you to decide about future treatment. Your mother will live another two to three years without chemo. There are three types of breast cancer. The one your mother has is the most aggressive. It’s incurable."

Those numbing words pierced my brain. I wanted to hide my heavy head somewhere.

"Sometimes, a bone marrow transplant can be done. But that…" Dr. Pace hesitated and finished with difficulty, "would be like bringing a dead person back to life. It’s a very difficult procedure."

The lab results were ready in a week. Thirty-four of the 36 lymph nodes contained cancerous cells. Her cancer had metastasized.