Last year, I was diagnosed with Hepatitis C, cirrhosis, and end-stage liver disease. My doctor says I need a liver transplant in the next 2 to 5 years or I will die. (There is no cure for Hepatitis C.) So, I find myself in a mess of paperwork, waiting for Social Security to start my Medicare, after which, I will be put on a list for a transplant. Until then, it's medication and luck. At least I have won my Social Security case — and I have the Hawkins Center to thank for that.
But still I wonder, which will come first — the transplant or my college degree? I have learned to live with the uncomfortable knowledge that I may not see forty. Yet a greater part of me believes that I will. Perhaps it is this knowledge that makes me savor life so much today, that makes me want to learn so much now. If so, then I have done a good thing with this disease.
It is easy to be tragic. I took that route when I was too young to know better. But self-pity gets to be tiring and tiresome. So, instead, I decided to write. It's curious, that I, a Malaysian girl, who was educated in another language, can find solace in the English language, but I have. In fact, English will be my major, for I am in love with this language.
With this love, I have become brave. When I was a young teen, I dreamed of being a writer. Recently, I sent a piece of my writing to a women's magazine in Malaysia. To my amazement, the editor sent me an e-mail saying she liked what I had written and asked if I would write a monthly column for the magazine describing my life here in Berkeley. Once a waitress, then a flower girl who sold bouquets on the streets, I am now a writer and a college student. Today, I share my candor and life with readers across the ocean. I tell my readers how I live, laugh and cry. I tell my goals, my strengths and my hopes. I tell what I know. I name my demons and my fears. I am not finished with life yet. There is still another chapter or two left.
Strange as it is to put on paper my goals and desires, when I look at them, I feel strength and a new hilarity. Who would have thought this of a former flower-girl and ex-waitress? The nicest part of it is that these are attainable goals. A bachelor's degree? Perhaps. But I am looking toward that Ph.D.