Just when I had finally managed to get my long-term visa for Thailand approved, I ended up buying a return ticket home instead.

“You have some kind of mass on your uterus, around ten centimeters, and your CA125 tumor marker is extremely high. The next step should be a biopsy. It doesn’t look good,” my Thai doctor frowned, circling the number 699 in red. Normal values are somewhere between 0 and 35.Later, I read that this marker can be elevated for all sorts of reasons, but for some reason he seemed fairly certain already.

“I’m afraid it’s cancer.”

I heard the word clearly, but instantly pushed it away. That couldn’t possibly apply to me. I probably just had another cyst. I’d had those before.

My son and I weren’t supposed to return to the Czech Republic for another month. We planned to spend Christmas at home. I hate when my plans suddenly change and I have to rethink everything from scratch. But the doctor’s serious expression kept flashing through my mind until I finally told myself it would be better not to wait. The truth was, different health problems had already been interfering with my normal life for over a month.

It all started with a urinary tract infection. I was given antibiotics. Constant trips to the bathroom, a swollen lower abdomen painful to the touch, discharge. After a week it improved, but a few days later everything came back, along with an unpleasant pressure inside my body. Fever for two nights in a row. Cold sweats even with the air conditioning running. For the first time in my life, I felt genuinely exhausted during the day.

Thankfully, my little boy could entertain himself for a while, or I would put cartoons on for him. Sometimes he’d come check on me, bring me a slice of apple or a candy, then quietly disappear again. I really do have a golden child. I decided to try another doctor. The clinic belonged to the same network, so he pulled up all my records on the computer immediately.

“You were given very broad-spectrum antibiotics. No wonder it came back,” he explained.

He prescribed different medication and gave me an injection in the butt. I still had some time before I needed to pick my son up from kindergarten, so I stopped at a grocery store on my scooter to buy breakfast. Standing near the bakery section, nausea suddenly hit me. Then chills. By the time I reached the checkout counter, black spots were already dancing in front of my eyes. The cashier kept asking if I was okay. I paid and somehow tried to make it outside. They must have thought I was on drugs. Pattaya is famous for its nightlife — people don’t exactly come there for the beaches. At the last possible second, I found the toilets and collapsed over the toilet bowl. When I came to, I felt noticeably better. I pulled myself together, got back on the scooter, and went to pick up my son. That was my second round of antibiotics. Things improved, but the intense pressure in my lower abdomen stayed. Then came crushing fatigue and lower back pain. That was when my doctor ordered blood tests and did an ultrasound. It became obvious there was a tumor growing inside my abdomen causing all of it. 

Five days remained before our flight. I had to cancel kindergarten, empty the house we were living in, pack everything, say goodbye. My ex-husband, who lived nearby, happened to be in China for work at the time, so he didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye to our son. I had moved to Thailand with my little one seven months earlier precisely so we could become a family again for him. Side by side, even if not truly together. And now our family was splitting apart once more. Because of me. I felt guilty. If I had taken better care of myself, maybe none of this would have happened. But there was nothing left to do.

“We’ll be back by the end of February at the latest.”

That’s what I told the kindergarten teachers, my friends, and the father of my child.