Black Collegian News & Views

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

Back in Atlanta.  The place I longed for so often while in New Orleans.  I hated to see the skyline.  Nothing felt right about being home this time.  But I had lost all will and couldn't even voice my disgust at being “brought” home as if I were mentally challenged or as if I were a child.

But I was a child.  I was my mama’s baby again.  I slept with her every night.  I ate when she fed me.  I bathed when she bathed me.  I watched TV when she did.  If she said come sit on the porch, I sat on the porch.  The veritable life had been knocked out of me. The passion, the charisma, the charm and vigor, the fire that once comprised my personality was all gone.  I was docile and incapable of making my own decisions. 

All I knew to do was cry, follow mama and cry some more.  The doctors at Mercy had taken so much more than my womb ... they had cut Viebica out with everything else and I had become a stranger even to myself.

After the wound left from the incision healed, it was time to begin the chemo.  Chemo was more than miserable; it was the final test of my spirit.  It was so harrowing that I couldn't even cry for the first few weeks of chemo.  What was the use?  I was sick all the time.  I threw up around the clock for the entire week that I was in the hospital receiving the treatment and then for at least a week thereafter.  I continued this schedule from September to the end of December, in the hospital one full week for chemo, out two weeks, then back in. 

It was in the hospital that I first began to let myself feel.  I had to.  I had already flirted with insanity and cried until my eyes ached.  Chemo was just something else on the list of excuses to slit my wrists.  I wasn't ready to do that, so what else could I do, but try to slowly put the pieces back together?

With nothing but time on my hands and with no one there but the walls, and the “me’s,” I had to start doing things for myself.  I had to bathe myself and amuse myself.  I had to keep up with my appointments and make sure I was being given the right medicine and the right amount of chemo.  These small responsibilities began to resurrect the person who had died inside.

But as she came to, she was horrified and repulsed at what she saw.  A bald head, a washed out face and eyes that had cried far too much ... hopelessly distant eyes that did not recognize the image in the mirror that claimed to be me.  Two things inside me had separated.  My heart and my mind, or my mind and my soul or reality and perception.  I'm not sure which.  Maybe there were two “me’s.”  It felt just that way.  Like there was a “me” whom I used to love who had died.  And a “me” whom I hated, but who had kept my body alive. 

And now the “me” that I loved was awakening, but the wreckage was so overwhelming, that that "me" did not know where to begin.  It's like letting your house get so dirty that you don't know where to start cleaning first.  So you just start picking things up anywhere, which is precisely what I did.

The first thing I started doing was opening my own mail.  I had not done so since I left New Orleans.  This was significant because it marked the point at which I began to reclaim control of my own life and take responsibility for myself again.  Next, with some hesitation, I started letting my best friend take me on an outing once a week.  Up until this point, the only time I left my house was to go to the hospital for my chemo.  I didn't cry as often anymore, but I began having more intense crying spells ... crying that asked why and how and what will I do now ... and crying that tried to answer all of that.  Finally, there was crying with purpose - purging, healing crying.

The chemo was cut short one session because my fingers had begun to go numb, a side effect that could have caused long term nerve damage.  But my doctors were confident that one missed session would not have a major influence on the chemo’s effectiveness.  The chemo was finally over and I could have jumped through the roof.  The next couple of weeks were really hard.  I wanted my independence back but my body wasn’t ready.  I tried to be patient, but couldn't. 

I went right out and got a job.  It turned out to be too stressful, so I left and got another one.  I work at that job now and I enjoy it immensely.  My hair is growing back ... mama calls it my peach fuzz.  And I feel a semblance of normalcy now.  But I am always aware that Viebica was never completely resurrected.  She never will be.  She could not reconcile this tragedy or make sense of why it happened to her or how.  But there is a woman here now who is stronger than she ever was.  There is a woman here now who has stared death in the face and challenged it in spite of herself ... challenged it even when she did not even know she was herself.

I miss her.  Sometimes I miss her ‘til it hurts.  I look at old pictures and I hate to think that she is gone.  I miss her innocence and her unfamiliarity with this degree of pain and loss.  I miss assuming that I'll live to see forty.  I miss being able to plan a future without the afterthought that I may never realize those plans; I long for a day that cancer won't cross my mind and leave me feeling angry, terrified and helpless.

But I'm getting better.  Working has helped.  I've gotten everything in order to return to Xavier in the fall.  I have made plans for my summer, I'll be back at the Times-Picayune for another internship.  I even go out with my friends now without having to be dragged by my peach fuzz.  I even started dating again ... I had shunned men for the longest time, afraid that my sterility would be grounds for rejection. 

I laugh now, more often than I cry and that's a feat in and of itself. I will find out in two weeks whether or not the cancer is in remission.  If it's not, I'll need to take more chemo.  I haven't decided yet if I will or not.  I'm not too sure that I want to go on torturing myself with chemo if the cancer persists.  And I no longer want to die, but if it's to be so, it will be so.

In the meantime, I'll be swallowing all the life I can hold while I'm here.  I'll be watching sunrises and laughing at something silly.  I'll be drinking lemonade, smelling flowers and humming a happy tune.  I'll stop and cry every now and then because I still miss Viebica.  But I'll dry up and hum some more.  Paint a picture with yellow, red and orange.  Smile and watch children play even if they aren't mine.  And keep going.  To wherever this path leads. 

Who knows what's at the end of it?  It could be death, but then it could be the fulfillment of life.  It could be more cancer and chemo, but then it could be a cure.  It could be something scary but it could be something exciting.  It could be fame or it could be obscurity.  It could be something dark, looming and sad ... but then, who knows?  It could be Viebica.

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.