16 May 2005

30-40-50

There are three lovely ladies with stomach cancer in my ward, their beds are in a row together in the same corner of my ward, one's in her 30's, another in her 40's, and the other one's in her 50's. They all have disseminated disease, meaning their cancers have spread to other places in the body and their disease is incurable, and each one of them, thinner than i am, came in with their own problems, one with fever and kidney infection, the other with fluid filling up in her lungs and abdomen making her difficult to breathe, and the other one just having had an operation done with part of her gut connected to her abdomen wall (bypass), still recouperating.But each of them greets me with a big smile every day when I step into the ward. They love to see me as I talk loads (and cough loads too this week!) and I love getting to know about them. The connection grew from the day I told them about my photo-taking, they were keen to see my photos. I told them about my hobbies, my loves and just funny stuff. Today, they were happy to see me as I promised them I'd bring my pinhole camera and my japanese photos from home to show them, after having seen my old box of pinhole photos. They loved it. I'm surprised that it'd brighten their dull days in the hospital. And 2 of them would like to buy the pinhole now, one to give to her friend, one to give to her son... Sometimes, there's a sort of feeling in your head and you just wish you can do your best. Even though you have no idea what the outcome might be. I guess, it's this impulse that had held me here for this long.