Black Collegian News & Views

The following is part two of a three part series on Viebica’s battle with Ovarian Cancer.

I woke up in agony. In too much physical pain to deal with anything emotional.  But the doctor fixed that.  He ordered more morphine, but not before leaning over the bed on post-op, and very firmly, very curtly stating, "Ms. Stokley, wake up, it's cancer," and walking away to go find my family.

I was reeling, but only for a fraction of a second.  Morphine came to numb the pain, both physical and emotional, and sleep immediately thereafter.  I awoke to the sound of my nephew crying and the nurses fussing about me needing rest; then I drifted off again.  It went on like this for a day or two -- waking, being drugged and falling back to sleep.  I remember one time waking just long enough to thank God for my drug-induced escape from this hell, which I had no idea how I would deal with when slumber could no longer be an escape for me.

And it was hell—sheer hell—when I finally woke up.  I remember reading a book once, and in it the protagonist, who had been an evil man and was now reformed, remembered a day in his sin when he could feel "the blue flames of hell" lapping at his feet.  I was never evil.  But the blue flames not only lapped, they consumed, and they were merciless and cruel and lasting.  And hell existed everywhere ... hell in my head to keep from cracking up ... hell in my heart because I hated and could find no target for that hatred ... hell because I was morbidly depressed and I longed for death.  It hurt too much to live.  It hurt too much to move.  It hurt to breathe.  It hurt to look at anything alive, or to see anything laughing.  It ripped me to shreds for my friends and professors to visit me at the hospital and see me broken ... and defeated.  I felt so defeated.

I had busted my behind to make it from the projects of Atlanta to this little private school in New Orleans.  I had struggled too hard to make it back each semester and to stay above a 3.5.  I had spent too many days going when I didn't feel like going, studying when my body cried out for rest.  I had sacrificed too much to be knocked down like this.  The shock of it all, the gravity of it all had left me dazed and unresponsive.  My only response was crying.  I cried all day, every day.  Crying came so naturally, so fluidly.  It was like the beating of my heart ... involuntary and constant.  I would cry as I ate, as I watched television and in the shower.  I cried when we left the hospital.  I cried as my mama and sister packed up my apartment - MY apartment.  I cried when my friends arrived from California to help my mom and dad drive my things and me back to Atlanta.  I cried all the way back to Georgia.  

I was leaving my friends, my education, my independence and my future in New Orleans, and facing the uncertainty of the rest of my life, if there would be a "rest," heading to Atlanta for the torture that is chemotherapy.  But more than that, I was leaving babies that were never to be ... my heart ... and big chunks of my soul.

What was worse was that the tears never brought relief or any catharsis as tears usually do.  I think that subconsciously I just knew that crying constantly was the only means I had of maintaining my sanity.  As my body knows that the heart absolutely must beat in order for the process of life to continue; my mind knew that crying was indispensable if I were ever to be “me” again.  

I needed to mourn the loss of everything that was being and had been taken away.  I had sons whose names I had already pondered to mourn.  I had health to mourn.  I had my life and the brightness of my future to grieve over.  If I didn't cry I would have imploded, lost my mind, faded into a distant isolated place in my mind.  So survival instincts told me to cry.  "Just keep crying ... keep crying.  Because when you stop, when you can no longer respond to this pain, you're lost.  So keep crying.  You'll pull through.  Just keep crying." Thank God I did.  Thank God I still do.

Viebica Stokley is a student at Xavier University in Louisiana.  Prior to learning that she has cancer, she was editor of the Xavier Herald’s living page.  She plans to resume her editorial duties next school year.