Fight

Yes, everything was clear now... I went for tests with my friend Aga. Today was the day of reckoning...

The results...

After pneumonia, thorough physical examinations, chest X-rays, and finally a biopsy, I could eliminate the word "maybe" from my personal vocabulary and replace it with "definitely."

Non-small cell lung cancer.

Stage 3, the cancer had spread to the chest walls, diaphragm, and mediastinal lymph nodes. "

I give you a year to live, no more," the doctor said callously. Should I be surprised? No. He's probably been through more than one "cancer," seen more than one; for him, it's routine. Aga, like a reliable friend, was with me. She held my hand tightly the entire time; in those moments, she was the only one I had. We walked out into the street, stunned, I don't know who was more.

"Where would you like to go?" Aga asked.

After a moment of silence, I replied:

"You know what, I'd like to be alone. I'll go home, you go to the university, you have classes, I'll call you in the evening.

" "But you shouldn't..." "

Please, Aga, respect my decision. I want peace and quiet to think everything through. I feel shocked, my mind is spinning. I can't wrap my head around what the doctor was talking about... What chemotherapy, why? What am I supposed to do now? I need to come to terms with all this, talk to myself, face to face, without witnesses."

"Are you sure you want this? Or... wouldn't it be better if I accompanied you? My classes aren't important. I'll sit quietly, practically as if I weren't there, and you can think everything through carefully. I'll be with you just in case..." "Come

on, I won't hurt myself, I need solitude. You know that whenever something went wrong, I had to be alone; it's just a habit, remember how it was always like that?" Have I ever tried to hurt myself? -

"Okay, you win, but if anything happens, call me, I'll come immediately, take something to calm you down, preferably for sleep, don't think too much..."

- "You too, Aguś, take something, you look like a 7, what a disaster, after all, you'll outlive me, not me you...

" "What the fuck is going on, why did this have to happen to me? I don't smoke compulsively like Aga, well, I won't say I live a healthy life, I eat so-called fast food, I don't do sports, I only run if I see a bus about to miss me, but are these all reasons why I won't be here in a year? Maybe they are, or maybe I'm just plain unlucky... It had to fall on someone, so it fell on me... The question is: what next?" I stopped writing in my diary and sat with my notebook trying to answer this question. Suddenly... I knew...

"What a son of a bitch that doctor is! How could he say I have a year left to live?! I'll show him, that pompous faggot who thinks he's seen everything in life and predicted it, that he can decide someone's life, 'One, two, three, you die...' Is this some kind of fucking rhyme and tell?

Right, I'm sick, but he has no right to judge the length of my life, because it's mine! Chemotherapy, radiotherapy, anything that can help me. I'm not afraid of sacrifices, I'm ready for them. I'll renounce everything the disease forces me to do, just to live one more day... Just to live at least one year and one day... Two days... Three days... I want to live! Desperately! Greedily! At all costs! I'm young! I deserve life, I deserve it no less and no more than anyone else! I won't let it be taken away from me so quickly!" I'll show that doctor it's possible, I'll show them all...

a week later, my mother came to pick me up to help me with my luggage. I was leaving for Christmas in my hometown, about 100 km from Wrocław. We'd just left the dorm and were walking down the street when I felt faint... I had a coughing fit, I was short of breath, and I stopped.

"Daughter, what's wrong with you?" I was touched by my mother's concern. I couldn't bring myself to tell her this terrible news. She had so many worries herself, she wouldn't help me, why should I add to her worries?

"Nothing, Mom, nothing," I managed to choke out between coughing fits. "It's because of that pneumonia, I don't think I've fully recovered yet.

" "Oh, poor thing, you should have come sooner. Why didn't you tell me anything when I called?"

I couldn't answer; another coughing fit brought bloody sputum. The pain in my chest grew and became unbearable. Suddenly, the ground began to split beneath me, the world spun, and I fell into darkness.

Wait a minute... I no longer feel shortness of breath... I breathe easily and freely. What's happening? It's morning in some room, no, not a strange one, not a hospital room... It's my room... It's so good that

I woke up... I don't have friends, but I have time and a chance to make them, right?

Perhaps not all is lost in my life? Perhaps fate has given me more time to fight than in this dream?