The Road to Warsaw

When the doctor said cancer, the first thought that entered my head was that Natalia was going to die. There’s an impulse to resist using the word cancer because, I suspect, that people think it an insurmountable obstacle, something from which you cannot recover. I told myself not to think in those terms. In the hospital, doctors in the radiology department had reassured me that once they amputated her limb Natalia would be OK. Don’t worry yourself too much she will be OK. It was reassuring on a certain level but I was in shock at the thought of Natalia having to endure an amputation of her leg. The doctors were casual in stating the prognosis but to me it was alarming. My daughter would have to have her leg amputated.
I made calls to everyone I knew, family and friends to find out anything I could about the illness. I quickly learned how commonplace such crises are. Everyone I spoke to me had been touched by cancer either first hand or through close ones. It’s a terrible illness and yet I realized then there are so many that are completely unaware of it like I had been before my daughter’s diagnosis.
I searched anywhere and everywhere I could for any information I could about the particular form of cancer that the doctor suspected Natalia of having, Ewing’s Sarcoma. It’s a relatively rare form of cancer, and even though Poland has the highest prevalence of the disease in Europe, even there it still occurs at the infrequent rate of 1.5 cases per 10,00 people in the population . Despite this, I would discover that my babysitter’s cousin had had the illness and was now in remission.She told me of the Institute of Mothers and Children, the hospital where she had recieved her treatment and which had an excellent reputation in Poland for providing care to people with cancer. She explained that the doctors there had a reputation as miracle workers, able to solve the most intractable problems. This hospital was the only one in Poland that received money from the government for creating very specific endoprotheses for children whose limbs had to be partially amputated due to cancer. Their success rates were excellent the young woman had told me. I was ecstatic. We had an appointment there the following day.
The hospital was located in Warsaw, the capitol of Poland. We were so fortunate to have the appointment. In Poland health care is administered on a regional level. Under normal circumstances people were not allowed to seek medical care outside their regional centers, but this Hospital was the exception to the rule. Since it specialized in the care of cancer patients it was allowed to adminster care to anyone in the country .
We prepared to leave. As we headed out to Warsaw we had no idea that for the next 4 years this journey would become habit, that the hospital would become our second home during the course of my daughter’s treatment there. I was so full of hope as I have continued to be always. There is nothing more important than hope. It sustains you in the darkest moments. I believe that we must always be positive when we face the future.. I believed that everything was going to work out. Then I realized that I had not given much thought to my two sons. In my visits to the doctor they had been in the care of relatives and friends. They were in good hands, I knew and that reassured me as we traveled to Warsaw.