Free Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani Page A

with my illness. Many, many individuals also commented on how positive and happy I always was—but that’s not how I felt inside.
    Danny was the only person who really understood what was going on and how much being around other people took a toll on me, so he slowly began acting as a protective shell around me, shutting people out. In the presence of others, I always felt the need to perform at being happy and positive, because I never wanted anyone to feel bad for me, nor did I want them to worry. Eventually, this started to really drain me, and I wouldn’t even answer the phone because I didn’t want to talk about my illness, I didn’t want anybody’s advice on how to handle what was going on inside me, and I didn’t want to repeatedly answer the endless questions that people who care tend to ask.
    I stopped going out and stayed in the safety of my own home, because apart from feeling unwell, I physically appeared very sick. My breathing was labored; my limbs were very, very thin; and I had difficulty holding my head up. The looks and comments I got because of this bothered me. I knew that people weren’t staring at me out of contempt or displeasure, but rather out of curiosity and, perhaps, a sense of pity. When I caught them looking, they shifted their eyes away abruptly, and I sensed their discomfort. I recognized the emotion behind their expressions, as I’d often felt it myself when seeing someone who was ill. They felt sorry for me. I soon came to accept that reaction as the norm from people who saw or interacted with me, and I felt sorry that my presence made others feel so uncomfortable, so at this point I stopped going out in public altogether.
    Soon, I found myself locked in my own cage of fear and desperation, where my experience of life was getting smaller and smaller. Time slid by in a slippery descent. To me, anyone who didn’t have cancer was lucky. I envied every healthy person I met. It didn’t matter what their living conditions were; they were without the fiend that was relentlessly plundering my body…my mind…my life.
    Each morning, I woke up with a glimmer of hope: Today may just be the day that things turn around. But each evening would end with the familiar, heavy feeling, every night bringing a greater sense of defeat than the day before.
    Disillusioned, I started to question what I was fighting so hard to keep. What did it all mean anyway? In my pain and fear, I could no longer see the purpose in continuing, and I felt myself getting tired. I was beginning to give up. I was getting ready to admit that I was beaten.
    B Y THIS TIME, I WAS GOING IN AND OUT OF THE HOSPITAL for blood transfusions and other treatments. When I was at home, I spent most of my days sleeping or resting. I couldn’t go out or walk around for prolonged periods of time. Just half an hour of activity left me tired and out of breath. I was losing weight fast and perpetually running a low-grade fever.
    “ Do you think my condition can still improve at this stage?” I asked my doctor one day, immediately after he’d finished conducting a routine body scan to assess my situation.
    He averted his eyes as he said, “I’ll send the nurse in to help you get dressed.” What he didn’t tell me was that he wanted to talk to Danny in private.
    “There’s little we can do now,” the doctor told him once they were safely outside. He looked directly at my husband and continued, “She has about three months to live at best. The latest scans show that the tumors have grown and increased in number, and the cancer has spread quite aggressively throughout her lymphatic system. It’s too late even for chemotherapy—her body can’t handle the toxicity at this stage. She’s so weak that any treatment now will just weaken her further and bring her closer to death. I’m so sorry.”
    Although Danny put on a brave front and didn’t tell me what the doctor had said at that time (he shared it with me many months later), I