Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Mit­era Balka­ran is mak­ing her mir­a­cle work. Her mir­a­cle is life.

In Ju­ly 2021, the Bel­gian-based, Trinida­di­an en­gi­neer’s life was for­ev­er changed by some­thing a few cen­time­tres in size.

Mitera Does Mirror Therapy Post Amputation

One Fri­day, af­ter ex­er­cis­ing, Mit­era no­ticed a strange lump on her leg, so she booked an ap­point­ment with a doc­tor on the Mon­day. Up­on ex­am­in­ing, the doc­tor as­sured her that there was noth­ing to wor­ry about. The lump was like­ly an al­ler­gic re­ac­tion or as the re­sult of work stress, he in­sist­ed. Tak­ing his word, Mit­era con­tin­ued with life as nor­mal; un­til she couldn’t.

“I saw it grow. And then like the area around it was re­al­ly warm. Like the lump was re­al­ly hot. I al­so start­ed get­ting strange sen­sa­tions at night, but on­ly at night. And I read up on it, it is like a de­layed fa­tigue sys­tem that’s go­ing on. That’s when you do all these ac­tiv­i­ties dur­ing the day, but at night, you pay for it. On top of that, I was feel­ing like burn­ing sen­sa­tions in my leg - like a knife edge was run­ning up and down,” She re­called.

“I knew some­thing was wrong. ”Fol­low­ing her in­stinct, Mit­era booked an­oth­er ap­point­ment. This time with a dif­fer­ent doc­tor. The doc­tor rec­om­mend­ed an ul­tra­sound, as soon as pos­si­ble. An ap­point­ment was booked for lat­er that day.

“I was think­ing that it’s a ball of flu­id in my leg that needs to drain or some­thing. I was nev­er think­ing tu­mor. That was nev­er in my brain,” Mit­era re­called dur­ing our phone in­ter­view. “When I fi­nal­ly got the ul­tra­sound that evening, the doc­tor who did dit, she was like - this is def­i­nite­ly a tu­mor. She said that I need to do an MRI to rule out if it was can­cer.”

She re­turned the fol­low­ing day for the MRI.

“I was like what’s the worst case sce­nario in this, and what’s the best case sce­nario? She’s like the worst case is can­cer, some kind of sar­co­ma. And the best case is that the tu­mor is be­nign,” Mit­era re­mem­bered of the ap­point­ment.

It was the worst case sce­nario. A biop­sy, weeks lat­er, would con­firm that it was can­cer.

“What they nar­rowed it down to was a dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed pleo­mor­phic (SP) high grade sar­co­ma, and then in brack­ets N O S, which means not oth­er­wise spec­i­fied…High grade means that the cells it­self were rapid­ly di­vid­ed and re­al­ly ag­gres­sive,” she said.

“It was, we do surgery. We take out the tu­mor, and we take it out with mar­gin…And then they will de­cide with a team of doc­tors, whether I’m a can­di­date for ra­di­a­tion, be­cause the can­cer was nowhere else in my body…It was stage two.”

Due to the ag­gres­sive na­ture of the can­cer, the doc­tors sched­uled emer­gency surgery two weeks lat­er - in late Au­gust. Mit­era, re­cent­ly en­gaged, un­der­went what ap­peared to be, by all ac­counts, a suc­cess­ful surgery.

“I felt okay. I felt like, okay, the can­cer is out of my body, And I was sur­prised be­cause they did scans on my ab­domen - be­cause that’s usu­al­ly where can­cer would spread to - and there was noth­ing. So, I felt some re­lief. And then I was ex­cit­ed to start ra­di­a­tion be­cause I thought, okay, this is now go­ing to kill what­ev­er can­cer is left in that spot,” she said.

“It was a re­al­ly high dose of ra­di­a­tion. In the end, it re­al­ly burned my leg, and that’s when the new prob­lems start­ed. I had a gap­ing wound in my leg, so I start­ed see­ing the wound open­ing up, around De­cem­ber….Every­body thought that it would close but I would look and it looked like it kept open­ing. It looked like it want­ed to pull apart.”

De­spite the ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain of the surgery wound, Mit­era found com­fort in the tu­mor’s ab­sence. With the fresh lease on life, Mit­era and her Ger­man fi­ance, Con­stan­tine, re­turned home, to Trinidad, for a well-de­served va­ca­tion. It had been two years since she last saw her fam­i­ly. Mit­era’s moth­er, in par­tic­u­lar, was wor­ried sick by her can­cer di­ag­no­sis.

Mitera in hospital, post amputation

“I came home for ten days be­cause I want­ed to see my fam­i­ly. Trav­el had fi­nal­ly opened back up for peo­ple to trav­el to Trinidad. We were al­so plan­ning our weed­ing, so we want­ed to see the venue and these things. And then you know, I was look­ing a lot at the wound like, I hope this goes away in time be­cause we had trips planned lat­er i the year,” Mit­era said.

“FIrst week in March, just when I came back from Trinidad, I did my scan, and they said, all clear, but there was some­thing grow­ing on my knee…I could see. I could feel some­thing. I was get­ting sim­i­lar feel­igns as I was last time…The nurse said it’s not a tu­mor, it’s just like­ly a nerve is­sue from surgery.”

Con­vinced that there was some­thing more to it, she pushed for an ul­tra­sound.The re­sults were re­vealed to her a few days lat­er.

“I could see that the nurs­es eyes looked very, you know, as if some­one was cry­ing and wiped their tears, and then I won­dered why her eyes looked like this. Then she sat down and showed us a scan, and then said the can­cer­ous lump has spread to your lungs.” It was stage 4 can­cer.

“I’m a per­son who doesn’t show their emo­tions in­front of peo­ple. When I’m in my pri­vate space, you know, I’ll cry. In that of­fice, I cried and just kept cry­ing. I was cry­ing and then she stopped talk­ing be­cause I was ob­vi­ous­ly not ab­sorb­ing any­thing she said,” Mit­era said as she fought back tears.

“She went back to the scans from March and she showed us - she said I guess we didn’t see it be­cause it was so tiny. It looked like a tiny speck. But it was there since March. They said I need­ed to start chemother­a­py im­me­di­ate­ly. I look at her, be­cause I built up trust with her as she’s very em­pa­thet­ic. I asked her, what do you think? Should I do the chemo? And she looked at me dead in my eyes and said, yes. She said you must save your life.”

In prepa­ra­tion to be­gin chemother­a­py, Mit­era was as­signed to an on­col­o­gist. On­col­o­gists spe­cialise in the di­ag­no­sis and treat­ment of can­cer. Her first con­sul­ta­tion sprung an­oth­er sur­prise; and it was an­oth­er un­pleas­ant one.

“He said, do you mind if I look at you? He be­gan look­ing at my leg wound and then he sat down. Then he said, right, I think am­pu­ta­tion will be the best op­tion for you. He showed us­ing his leg where they would cut from, and said, we will start you on an ag­gres­sive six week cy­cle chemother­a­py. Very ag­gres­sive, and this will be our on­ly hope for a cure,” MIt­era re­called.

Mitera and her family outside hospital

“Your chance of a cure is be­tween 10% and 20%.” Mit­era’s mind went blank. Right there, she be­gan griev­ing the death of her old self.

“I thought to my­self I have no life. My whole life is go­ing to change. There’ll be so many things that I’ll nev­er be able to do again. And then I zoned back in and the doc­tor was talk­ing about the dif­fer­ent op­tions. He said if I kept my leg, but did plas­tic surgery, the would would take months to heal and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly the can­cer will ad­vance and spread over my body. He said I would be dead with­in six to eight weeks,” Mit­era said.

“I felt so be­trayed. I re­al­ly thought I had beat the can­cer. I re­al­ly thought I went through enough pain to get out of this ex­pe­ri­ence. And then in the end, it came out and came out worse…I just felt like I was on my deathbed,” she said with au­di­ble scars.

Words of guid­ance from her moth­er and then, her doc­tor made her de­ci­sion. She de­cid­ed to fight.

“Grow­ing up my moth­er al­ways used to say God on­ly helps those who help them­selves. And she would say you must do all you can do in your hu­man ca­pac­i­ty, and then ask God to do the rest. Then, the on­col­o­gist said some­thing sim­i­lar that stuck with me. It was the same mes­sage. He said that mir­a­cles on­ly hap­pen when you work at it,” she said.

“That be­came my mantra, you know, that I’m work­ing on my mir­a­cle.” A few days lat­er, on June 29th, 2022, Mit­era’s leg was am­pu­tat­ed from above the knee.

“I was a dancer grow­ing up. I did In­di­an clas­si­cal dance. I cried so much. It was like I was mourn­ing and griev­ing a life that I will nev­er get back. I thought I’d nev­er be able to dance like that again,” Mit­era said, cry­ing as she re­mem­bered the day she lost her leg.

“When they were putting me to sleep in the op­er­at­ing the­atre, there were tears rolling down my eyes.” With­in ten days, the wound was healed. But Mit­era’s men­tal wounds were nev­er go­ing to re­cov­er quick­ly. Re­gard­less of her phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al readi­ness, she would on­ly have a cou­ple of weeks to process the am­pu­ta­tion. Her chemo had to be­gin im­me­di­ate­ly. To­day, Mit­era’s com­plet­ed four cy­cles of chemo and will be­gin her fifth cy­cle on Oc­to­ber 21st.

“I am there in the hos­pi­tal for about five days, and for four of those days chemo is dosed con­tin­ious­ly - morn­ing and night for four days straight. On the fourth day, it stops. Then they start flush­ing me with flu­ids be­cause the chemo can re­al­ly af­fect your kid­neys and blad­der. They flush me for 12 hours,” Mit­era said of her treat­ment rou­tine.

Some­how be­tween the chemother­a­py ses­sions and re­cov­ery, Mit­era finds the time and en­er­gy to share her sto­ry with oth­ers.

She wants to make sure women get screened, and that those with can­cer, like her­self, know they are not alone. She said, af­ter all, she’s lost many friends since di­ag­no­sis. Fol­low­ing ad­vice from a close friend - an In­sta­gram in­flu­encer - she start­ed a Tik Tok ac­count. Her ac­count doc­u­ments her life as an am­putee and stage four can­cer pa­tient.

“I start­ed do­ing it for aware­ness, and then for ed­u­ca­tion too. There are a lot of myths out there about can­cer that are not true. And a lot of peo­ple in Trinidad don’t like to go to the doc­tor when they feel like some­thing is wrong. Peo­ple in Trinidad need to stop ask­ing the neigh­bour or a friend for med­ical ad­vice. They need to go to a re­al doc­tor and get med­ical ad­vice,” she said.

“There are some peo­ple who com­ment on my Tik Tok ac­count and say, I feel very sor­ry for you. Or say, if I were you, I would have nev­er cut my leg off. I made the best de­ci­sion give the cir­cum­stances I was in. So, I told peo­ple don’t feel sor­ry for me I don’t even feel sor­ry for my­self. This is just a new chal­lenge.”

While oth­er may un­der­stand­ably shy away from the pub­lic’s view in such a cir­cum­stance, Mit­era con­tin­ues to grow in the con­fi­dence of her pur­pose. The chemother­a­py has caused her hair to drop out, but she wears her wigs proud­ly. The chemother­a­py leaves her phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly ex­haust­ed, but she’s full of an en­er­gy.

Mit­era has every rea­son to give up and sur­ren­der, but she keeps go­ing; work­ing for her mir­a­cle. Come March, if the chemother­a­py treat­ment is suc­cess­ful, Mit­era will walk down the aisle hand-in-hand with her fi­ance Con­stan­tine - who has stood by her side through­out the en­tire or­deal.

“I won’t have my pros­thet­ic leg yet, so I’ll have to do the cer­e­mo­ny in my crutch­es. It will not be easy to dance at my wed­ding, but I still want to do it. It’s some­thing that is pulling me through all of this, that wed­ding,” she said.

“And yes, I want to have a child. That would have to be in the fu­ture, maybe a few years, be­cause I have to make sure I’m can­cer free. I want to have a child one day, but it might be through al­ter­na­tive meth­ods - like us­ing my frozen eggs.”

Fol­low Mit­era’s jour­ney on Tik Tok @mi­ty_89.