52. DREAMS AND BALANCE

A few minutes before I walked into the ICU, Vigge said to me: "Don't worry. Everything's gonna be alright".

Even though I was shaking out of terror, I was thinking that everything had to be alright. I couldn't leave anyone behind for any reason. I can't remember what happened to my body during the operation nor how long it lasted. However, I remember that I used to wake up every now and then and then sleeping back. And for some reason, the clock in the ICU always chimed six. I don't know if all that had indeed happened or I was just dreaming while being under sedation. I would anyway feel as if I were totally paralysed and I couldn't even move my fingers and toes. It seemed to me as if I was listening to doctors talking, but I couldn't make out any words.

However, at some point, I finally woke up. My body was still paralysed and I couldn't move at all. A nurse was in the room, but I couldn't talk to her. I remember I just made a noise, which sounded like a cat was drowning. Then the nurse turned and saw I was awake. "You've woken up", she said. "You've woken up", she said. "Everything was alright, see?". I tried to talk to her, but it was impossible for me. "Don't exhaust yourself", she said. "You still need to relax a bit more. You've been sleeping for a whole week". A whole week? Had I been under sedation for a whole week? "Your family has been visiting you every day", she said to me.

My family! I wanted to get up again and show them I had made it and I would never leave them. My family had suffered many pains during our previous losses.

A few hours later, I slightly started coming back to life. At least I could somehow move my fingers and utter one word or two. At some point, it seemed to me that someone entered. Then I heard someone whispering: "Ingrid!" Ingmar! I tried to approach him, but he said to me: "Don't move yet. We were told you've woken up. Anna and your mum are here too". I saw them and smiled. I couldn't talk at all, so Ingmar was sitting next to me, caressing my hand. Then, after a while, he said: "We have to go home now and we're coming tomorrow. Ok?". I just shook my head, as I couldn't do anything else.

Days were going by and I could slightly get past this critical state. I could slightly start talking and sit back on the bed, however, I couldn't walk yet. When I would be able to walk, I would finally leave the ICU and be transferred to a hospital chamber. Ingmar said to me that he was visiting me every day and that the operation was heavy and lasted many hours. I could understand that. I was exhausted and suffering.

"I feel like a half person", I said.

"Quite normal. You've lost almost fifteen kilos".

How much?

"So...."

"So we have to start a healthy and balanced diet, so we get that weight back, right?"

The issue was that I couldn't eat, though. The nurses would bring me food and I couldn't eat anything. The food itself would disgust me as if I were pregnant. My weight was extremely and dangerously low and I shouldn't consider this as a joke. A few years back I had already had problems with my hematocrit, now after a cancer operation, it would be too risky if I started fooling around. That's why I was forced to eat or maybe Ingmar was literally feeding me. During that time my family had been taking care of me more than anybody ever did. I remember that since I was taken to a chamber neither Ingmar nor my mum ever left me a single moment. Anna would even skip school, in order to be with me. She would ask permission from the school, of course, after explaining the situation. I can't say I wanted the child to miss lessons. But she was so afraid about me, exactly as I was also afraid about myself.

I made it home in late May and my body was in a terrible state. I started to get physiotherapy because I had literally forgotten how to walk. Something I had also realised was that at that time I suddenly became a morning person. I once used to love the night and I would be sleeping during the daytime. During the previous months, though, I used to go to the hospital to get my chemos, so in order to be in time there, I had to be waking up at six o'clock every morning. That's why I had acquired an inner clock, so I would still be waking up at six every day. Ingmar was trying to understand how the hell this had changed so suddenly.

In the summer I had started to get even better. Of course, let's not forget that we were living in Australia, so during that time, it was winter. I had started to walk again, even though I was still facing difficulties, and I had also started to gain more weight. It was the first time in my life, that instead of summer, we were experiencing winter and this was something I really loved. We could take the kid to ski resorts, so we were drinking hot chocolate and wine close to the fire. It was adorable!

I had started to stand on my feet in the autumn of 2027 again. I don't mean that I suddenly was right as rain, but at least I could be more active. However, something that I noticed was that I didn't have any lust to do anything with Art anymore. I wasn't writing any music, nor books, nor scripts for plays. The only thing that I was doing was either educate myself and read, or solve puzzles, riddles or brainteasers. And exactly because I didn't want to do anything with Art at all at that time, I found a job elsewhere. I started teaching science in a local school: maths, physics, chemistry and biology. One could start wondering about how Ingrid Sorensen is able to do something like this. Truth be told, I knew a lot about the natural sciences, so that I could teach children. Whatsoever, I have always been dealing with maths and my knowledge is equal to a first-year maths student.

There weren't many students in the class, as the school was small. And the atmosphere was really beautiful because I wanted to have a good relationship with my students. I'd created an atmosphere of some Dead-Poets-Society type because I would always gather the children around me in a circle. I'd even showed the film once and I furthermore taught them Horace's Odes as well as Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and some Romantic Poetry, though these weren't part of the teaching schedule. Thus we had created a strong bond with one another because I really loved children and they also love me. And of course, I sometimes used unorthodox methods, because I had asked them to be calling me Ingrid, secretly from the schoolmaster.

I previously mentioned the fact that during that time I wasn't doing anything related to Art. This isn't completely true, as I indeed started to write a book. However, that particular one was more of an autobiographical nature and describes real stories. It is reminiscent of Daniel Wallace's Big Fish to a great extent, however, the stories are described in a realistic way. It was a book dedicated to my father's memory and narrates completely true facts. So to say, these were stories my dad used to narrate to me during his lifetime, which I gathered up in a book and then, of course, I changed the names. The main reason, why I did something like that, was exactly because I wanted to honour my father's memory. Storytelling, for him, as for me too, was an important part of his life and also something that greatly expressed his own personality. And the reason why he was narrating stories until the end of his life was that he knew the end was close and he wanted to be remembered about his stories.

After the summer, I started seeing a therapist, not because I wanted to analyse my childhood, but in order for me to able to stand on my feet mentally after the operation. Then I tried to understand what some reasons could be why I got sick. Of course, heredity played a major role, as on my father's side most family members had cancer too. However, I soon realised that this also had psychological roots as well. I mean that after 2022 my whole life drastically improved. I made my own family, at last, found my home etc., however, I can't say I definitely was balanced, especially with my own feelings and emotions. I would still hide things under the bed or search for shelters to hide. All I mean is that I wasn't the kind of person who would talk about their problems with some other close to them. Ingmar always had to milk every chapter from me. Because I'd gone through these dark times previously, I was trying to feel well and what I was doing was avoiding have bad feelings. I was just trying to escape bad feelings and not ever thinking of the old situation and not seeing why they hurt me. Consequently, I wasn't trying to fight the evil from its root, but I would simply walk away, as I would always do. And I believe that, when you are young, all these problems are more or less mental, however growing older, you might start to have serious health problems, caused by your mental state. I'm totally sure that my concealed anxiety, the silence and the endless patience of the previous years ultimately emerged with cancer. Because silent suffering might get out in other worse ways, which you might have never realised before.

Now it's time I spoke about a topic, which is crucial to me. People who met me for the previous ten years, know that I'm a very methodical person, that I have many interests and set goals and dreams, which in the end I achieve. Of course, I haven't always been like that and once upon a time I was exactly the opposite person. I would always put off things, which I could have done and I always wanted to set goals, but I could never do it. There's something sweet in these words that I've suddenly become a person, who lives a completely balanced (not seriously) life and even now I make my dreams come true. And that's not a lie. However, nobody ever asked themselves why I have suddenly changed like that and why I suddenly started to set goals. And that's the most tragic thing ever.

For ten long years, I've been living in terror and anxiety and I think that this fear will remain until my death. I constantly live under the fear of death. And my fear is exactly the fact that in 2027 I got away with it, however, I might have cancer again in the future and die, leaving a motherless child behind. Until my death, I will always think that this might come up again and that time I won't make it. And this thought is killing me. Towards the end of 2027, though, I started thinking more selfishly, as far as my possibility of dying is concerned. I was 31 and knew that all these years I was putting off so many things I always wanted to do. I had so many dreams, I wanted to set so many goals and I would never ever make any dream come true. Since Ingmar met me, I can remember him suggesting I set goals and every dream I make come true I should view it as the next level on a PlayStation game, something that was very helpful to me, given the fact I'm totally hooked on videogames. And now it was high time I took my husband's advice seriously. Thus, I was thinking that I didn't know how long I was going to live, so I had to live the way I never did before. To live my life to the full, enjoy it as much as I can and the most important one: Make all the dreams, that I had throughout my whole life, come true before I die because I don't know how long I'm going to live. The latter became my motto, which I still hold: Do anything you never had time to do before you die.

  That's one of the reasons why I wasn't doing anything related to Art. I realised that music was causing me to waste so much time in my life. Just imagine how many hours I would spend at home, not composing, but only listening to music. I remember myself sitting at home and listening to record after record in a row and wasting so much time, instead of keeping myself busy with other interests of mine. And within those interests, I won't place only my personal achievements. I place the fact that, as a mother, I'd been too absent. I don't think I'd paid a lot of attention to my family all these previous years when Anna was young, at least not at a balanced level. Thus, if there was something, which I had to accomplish before I died, this was that I had to find my own inner balance, without completely being lost in my own world and works. And the most important. The Art and my work should never be my whole life, but I should also find other things too, which I should do during my day.