I’ll be dead in a year.

I walked out of the office. Distraught. Disbelieving, Disoriented. I was destined to die.

I was 16 years old and my life was a living hell. I had had terustra my whole life but now it was different. It had me. It had me in its claws, choking me, lacerating me.  It had me in its grip and the pain was unimaginable. My friends abandoned me, my parents resented me and my sister was scared of me. I could not sleep for more than 10 minutes at a time. My body seared with unconceivable pain eve ry time my body touched another surface. Simply stepping in for a shower gave me enough pain to pass out.

I tried everything I could do. I travelled to 24 countries. I went to dermatologists, psychologists, hematologists, homeopaths, Tibetan spiritual healers, acupuncturists, physiologists. I followed their advice took their medicines but all in vain. Some of them did give me a glimmer of hope when symptoms started to disappear. Bone density came back to normal, the sun did not burn me and I could touch water without having a seizure. But they all returned and returned with massive magnitudes. It was in one of the offices mentioned here that I heard it.

“He’s going to die in a year”, she said.

I refused to accept my fate. I refused to accept my destiny. I refused to accept reality.  I wanted to scream with all my might that they were wrong. I wanted to prove them how wrong they were. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t scream much less prove them wrong. I was tired. I was tired of staring into space. I was tired of the monotonous routine I followed. I was tired of waking up every day with nothing to look forward to but agony.  Too tired of climbing on and on just to find myself going around in a circle. An epiphany struck me. Whether I chose to accept it or not  life had thrown me a curveball and I would have to fight it. I had to go up against my biggest adversary, one who knew every flaw, every imperfection about me. I had to fight my body for my life.

And so the struggle began. I fought with my body for my life. I fought the millions of cells which I was made of. Initially, I kept losing. I kept taking blows without any reward. Every passing moment of my life felt like eternity. I would cry, scream , howl but all with no result. I would claw at my flesh hoping, praying that there is a God and one who would hear my pleas and offer me some form of relief. Seconds melted into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, days into months, months into years and years into an eternity. Nothing Changed.

But I never stopped fighting. I fought with every last part of my body. I changed my routine to get over the obsessions of a teenage boy. I did not play games for two years, I did not step out of the house for two years, I did not see a girl for two years . I forgot what the world outside my house looked like, I forgot what I looked like before, I forgot what I was and where I was. The only people I saw for two years of my life were my father, mother and sister. I gave up my entire life to beat this disease.

After the two year long struggle I finally won. I beat my disease. I beat my body. The pain faded away into darkness and adrenaline pumped through my veins. I was back stronger than ever.

My body and existence had been thrust into the furnace of disease, enveloped by the flames of sufferance, pain and agony. My existence had been crushed, its rubbles scattered around in a chasm of solitude. My life as I knew had crumbled around me. I had forgotten how to live. Yet I had not been defeated. I has been sintered, forged and rebuilt stronger that I ever was.

I returned to the life I had left behind me an eternity ago. Same people, same faces, same country. It was not different but I was. I was stronger. I had mastered my body and could control it from pulse to pelvis. I could do anything.