I know what it’s like to step into a ring against someone bigger than you who wants to hurt you. The difference is that this time there isn’t a referee standing nearby to make sure things stay fair and save me if it all goes wrong.

This time, it’s just me.

And there are no rules.

I recovered well after the surgery. Friends and family came to visit, which helped the days pass quickly. My back and lower abdomen gradually hurt less, and we switched from IV pain medication to tablets so I’d be ready to go home. After a week, the biopsy results finally arrived. Of course, I barely slept the night before. The only other time I’d been this scared was when my water broke unexpectedly, two months before my son was due. The entire morning I was unable to focus on anything. I just watched the clock and counted down the remaining minutes. Eventually a nurse came to tell me it was time. I quickly messaged a friend.

“It’s happening.”

By the time I reached the lift, tears were rolling down my face. I managed to pull myself together before entering the room. The doctors were already waiting for me in the same large room where I’d been examined before. They explained what the biopsy had shown and what it meant for me. I started crying. I was embarrassed about holding everyone up, but it took me a few moments to pull myself together. Someone handed me a box of tissues. They waited patiently until I could focus again and continue listening. They outlined the plan for the coming months and asked if I had any questions.

“No, I think everything is clear.”

I thanked them, left with the nurse, and headed back towards the ward. The moment the lift doors closed, I started crying again. By the time I reached my floor, I’d wiped my face, pulled myself together, and walked back into the corridor. I picked up my phone and messaged the same friend, who had clearly been waiting impatiently.

“It’s ovarian cancer. I’m staying until Monday to get a port for chemotherapy. Three rounds of chemo, then surgery, then three more rounds.”

“Damn it. Okay. When did it start? Where has it spread? What stage? What treatment exactly? Which drugs? What are your chances? What happens next?”

Emotions, according to him, only complicate things. He shows concern by asking questions. Lots of questions. He wants to understand everything, analyze everything, and gain at least some sense of control over the situation. Within minutes he was throwing around medical terminology and statistics. He had already researched multiple scenarios and was becoming increasingly frustrated that I hadn’t collected enough information to make the whole situation fit neatly into a logical framework.

In that sense, we’re very similar.

Except this time.

“At least you know what stage it is, right?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“What do you mean you didn’t ask?”

“I was scared.”

He paused for a moment.

“The more information you have, the better. You can’t hide from this anyway.”

“Fine. I’ll go ask.”

Looking back now, though, the information I originally had was probably enough. Ovarian cancer. Chemotherapy. When it starts. What happens next. What more does a person really need to know? Whether you have a suitcase full of information or none at all, the reality doesn’t change. It’s still awful. It still turns your life upside down, along with the lives of everyone around you. A nurse called the doctors, but they had already left for the day. The head of the department was kind enough to come and talk to me himself.

That’s when I learned it was Stage III.

“I haven’t been to a gynecologist in three years,” I immediately started blaming myself.

“That wouldn’t have made much difference,” he replied. “The routine tests done during annual check-ups wouldn’t have detected this, not even cervical cytology. This type of cancer also grows very quickly. If you’d gone for a check-up in January, you could have been completely healthy at that point.”

That helped.

A little.

“What does Stage III actually mean?”

“It means the cancer has spread beyond the ovaries into the abdominal cavity and above the diaphragm.”

“Where exactly?”

He thought for a moment.

“Imagine a dandelion after it has gone to seed. Then imagine blowing on it and watching everything scatter. Or imagine throwing flour into the air.”

That image was unfortunately very clear.

“The largest tumor has already been removed. It was about fifteen centimeters. We also found disease in the bowel, pelvic lymph nodes, retroperitoneal lymph nodes, the peritoneum, and there is a lymph node metastasis above the diaphragm.”

I had no idea where half of those things were, and honestly, I didn’t ask. I wasn’t ready to visualize it. It was enough to know there was a lot.

“That’s why we couldn’t continue operating,” he explained. “First we need chemotherapy. The goal is to shrink everything enough so we can go back in and remove it all at once. Some of the affected lymph nodes are close to major blood vessels, which makes surgery risky. We may ultimately need three different specialists involved — a gynecological surgeon, a colorectal surgeon, and a vascular surgeon. After that would come more chemotherapy to clean up anything we couldn’t remove surgically.”

Then he added something that stayed with me.

“After all that, you should be healthy.”

Healthy.

That one word gave me more hope than anything else I’d heard all day. Doctors don’t casually throw around words like healthy. Maybe by autumn this would all be behind me. Maybe I’d get my life back. Then I asked the question that had been bothering me the most.

“Is this my fault?”

I didn’t want to one day tell my son that I couldn’t be there because I’d done something stupid, ignored something important, or somehow caused this myself.

“No,” he said. “This is a combination of many factors. Environment. Genetics. Random mutations during cell division. Radiation. Age. Infections. Hormones. Some people exercise, eat well, and still get cancer. Others smoke and drink for decades and never develop it. You’re relatively young, which is unusual, so we’ll also send you for genetic testing. Around ten percent of ovarian cancer patients carry a BRCA mutation. We need to rule that out or confirm it.”

Finally, I forced myself to ask the question I had been avoiding the entire time.

“What are my chances?”

The doctor gave a fairly long answer. To be honest, I don’t remember most of it.

I only remember the last sentence.

“It’s playable.”

I smiled.

The professor must be a sports fan.

I am too.

We understood each other perfectly. He waited to see if I had any more questions, but I simply shook my head. That was the only answer I really needed. Even now, when dark thoughts occasionally creep in, I repeat those two words to myself.

It’s playable.

During those eighteen days in hospital, I met countless nurses and doctors and went through more tests than I can remember. Every single person treated me with kindness and patience. Nobody rushed me. Nobody brushed me aside. They spoke to me honestly and treated me like a human being. They didn’t try to sugarcoat the situation or force optimism on me. They told me the truth, including the parts that weren’t pleasant.

So when the professor told me it was playable, I believed him. That doesn’t mean easy. It doesn’t mean painless. It doesn’t mean everything will go smoothly. I know exactly what playable means.

My ex-husband was a professional judoka, a Chinese national champion in his weight class, and now competes professionally in MMA. I spent eleven years beside him through training camps, weight cuts, dehydration, weigh-ins, injuries, fights, and hospital visits. I drove him to training when he was exhausted, watched him struggle through sauna sessions, helped him rehydrate after weigh-ins, stood in his corner during fights, and picked him up afterwards.

I’ve competed myself. Judo, Chinese wrestling, tuishou, MMA, Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

I know what it takes to prepare for a fight. I know what it’s like to stand alone across from someone bigger, stronger, and fully intent on hurting you. But in a ring or a cage, there’s always a referee. Someone watching. Someone who can stop the fight if things get bad enough.

This time, there isn’t.

This one is for keeps.

Life and death.

Literally.

My own personal Mortal Kombat. 🙂