A year before my mom had been experiencing some discomfort, but doctors, including friends of hers, had told her at the time that she had a “non-functioning adrenal adenoma,” a benign tumor. If only they had paid attention to her at the time…

The next steps were to confirm what exact type of cancer she had, and assisting and accompanying her was my main focus during those days. Nothing else mattered, no toilet paper lines, no fingerprint scanners, no weekly rations, it all became noise.

Two biopsies and some further testing determined that she had a liver Leiomyosarcoma, a very rare form of cancer — but not impossible to defeat. We were still determined to leave the country and start a new life somewhere away from the socialist chaos, but her treatment was the priority.

Asocial as I was in real life, though, this was around the time when I began taking a more active presence on social media, namely, my Twitter account, which I had only originally signed up for back in 2009 to help test a friend’s now-defunct website.

Talking to people, strangers as they were, did provide me with some form of solace and respite, something I very much have lacked for the most part of my life, more so at that precise time.

Even though my mom was already past 55 and eligible for retirement, the hospital continued to refuse to grant her retirement yet again for the second year in a row, cancer diagnosis in hand and all. The best they could do was to grant a leave of absence for chemotherapy.

At the recommendation of a friend, she went to a female oncologist that scheduled the first six rounds of chemo starting on the last week of October of that year. In the meantime, the government and the opposition were preparing for the next electoral battlefield: The 2015 parliamentary elections. I honestly couldn’t give a damn about them, my mother’s cancer was all I could think about.

My mom’s insurance gave the go-ahead, we found most of the meds she needed, and the first round of chemotherapy started without incident. Unfortunately, one of my aunts fell ill that same week, and passed away after dialysis failed to bring her kidneys back up — the third hard blow to our family.

My family did all of the funerary arrangements and wake procedures on that Friday while I remained with my mom during her fifth day of chemo. Because of her now-weakened immune system, she was only allowed to briefly attend the funeral, but the burial ceremony was a no-go.

The next days were rather bleak, and that’s without even counting the daily socialist-collapse routine of rations, lines, inflation, and shortages. My mother began to feel the first side effects of chemo, her hair began to wither and fall, her body began to feel the rest of the symptoms, and Venezuela continued to take a turn for the worse.

Everything became a blur, but although I was a failure in a professional and academic sense, I had to step up as a son. I took her car, a parting gift from my uncle before he died earlier that year, and I sloppily learned how to drive on the fly so as to be able to drive her to her chemo.

An old friend of mine, the oldest online friend I have, gave me a one month subscription to World of Warcraft, which I had stopped playing after I was no longer able to afford it at the start of the year — “to help you ease your mind a little during Christmas,” he said. That kind gesture would go a long way, as the game now allowed you to pay for its recurring fee using in-game currency, which I started doing since then, leading to the wildest outcomes if you’ve known me for a while.

That game was my only respite from all that was happening in my family and in my country. November and December came and went, assisting my mother through her chemo was all I had in mind. 

The Venezuelan opposition did the impossible and achieved their greatest electoral victory against the socialist regime in December 2015 in parliamentary elections. They had attained two-thirds of all seats in the National Assembly, a significantly important threshold that would’ve allowed them to impeach Nicolás Maduro and overdo much of the socialist damage.

If only thighs were that simple, though. If you’d think for a nanosecond that the United Socialist Party of Venezuela — which controls all courts, all institutions, and everything in between — was going to allow that to ever happen, then you’d be peeing off the pot, as they say in Venezuela.

The elections took place in December, yet that new parliament was to take office in January 2016, giving the outgoing socialist-controlled National Assembly weeks to expeditely replace the Supreme Court and stack it with Maduro loyalists — going as far as to appoint some of their fellow lawmakers as the Justices.

 The entire process was illegal and every norm was violated in their quest to strip power of Congress before they would even do something — but who are you going to complain to, Maduro? The Courts? The Attorney General? Who do you think they all serve?

The way they neutralized the opposition-led National Assembly was quite shrewd, and numerically “perfect” to strip the two-thirds absolute majority status out of them. You see, supposedly, there were allegations that the election of three opposition lawmakers from the State of Amazonas was rigged. An injunction against that election was filed to the new Supreme Court, which allowed it, of course.

As long as the injunction remained, those three lawmakers could not be sworn in. You’d think “but wait, if you subtract those three from the total, wouldn’t the opposition have a two-thirds majority still?” 

While the answer was yes, the legalese Coup de grâce from the Supreme Court was that even though they were not sworn in their seats still “counted” towards the total — hence the seated opposition lawmakers were three short from the absolute two-thirds majority and couldn’t therefore launch impeachment processes against Maduro and all that other stuff.

The opposition defied the order and swore the three congressmen in, the Supreme Court retaliated by holding the congress in contempt and rendering their acts null and void, completely nullifying anything they’d do.

Suffice to say, that was a rather mellow Christmas for us. 

My mother’s blood had been hit pretty hard by chemo, and she required what would be the first of several blood transfusions by early December. By chance, that was also the day a group of entertainers and clowns did a charity show for the kids at the rather worn out hospital. 

Mind you, this was during the collapse of Venezuela, my mom’s cancer, and other personal woes in that ever rollercoaster depression that characterizes me — but that was a moment, a much needed one, where I got to bear witness to genuine joy and smiles in such a dark moment of it all.

The expressly anointed (and 100% loyal to Maduro) Supreme Court, the effective castration of Congress, the country’s worsening collapse, and the socialist regime blocking recall referendum proceedings against Maduro led to over 5,700 protests taking place across Venezuela throughout the year, some of which were more brutally repressed than others.

Meanwhile, my 28th birthday came on January 09, 2016. My mom wanted to gift me something for my birthday, and  all I asked for was a simple notebook and a few pencils. I used that book, which I still have with me, to write the few notes of what would eventually be known as Sword of Vaifen, my first fiction novel project.

A few days after my birthday, my mother needed to take her first control CT scan, the double contrast required made up for a very unpleasant morning for her, and because contrasts and other supplies started to become rarer, we had no choice but to go to an upscale clinic that still had those tests available and on a reasonable timeframe.

The tests and the Oncologist’s evaluation determined that the first three rounds of chemo hadn’t been effective at all.  I was invaded by an insurmountable sense of dread and despair, to the point that the clinic’s psychologist offered to talk to me. I broke down in tears, trying my best to calm down. 

The oncologist suggested a new type of treatment: Gemcitabine and Docetaxel altogether. Fortunately, the doctor had those in stock, so she agreed to let my mom start them right away on the condition that we’d restock them asap.

With their lawmakers all but neutralized, the opposition had no idea what to do with regards to Maduro, and it showed. They began to contradict among themselves, promised things that never came to pass, and couldn’t reach a consensus on what action to take: Recall referendum, constituent assembly, or constitutional amendments. 

While they preyed upon themselves with their perpetual backstabbing of one another and desire to be in the spotlight, Maduro simply continued to reign unchallenged, accruing more power by the minute — and the country continued to further descent into a catastrophe.

Everything continued to worsen, medicine shortages were more pronounced, bread lines became longer, water distribution began to be further rationed; our power grid fell into further disrepair, the entropy, much like cancer, continued to spread all throughout the nation.

The absurdly high inflation, especially from 2017 onwards, led to what I could only describe in the simplest gamer terms as a “real life money dupe glitch.”

Here’s the thing, Venezuelan credit cards and credit lines were absolutely destroyed by the collapse of Venezuela’s economy under socialism, and up until a few years ago, credit cards were left with laughably low limits. Take for instance my mom’s “platinum” credit card, which ended up having a limit of roughly $1 in local currency.

But when it was still “working,” the trick that many used to lessen the impact of hyperinflation was that you’d buy something at the start of the month, and pay with credit card but don’t pay for your card debt just yet — hold on for a bit, wait until the bolivar crumbles some more, and then pay for the card, functionally paying only a fraction of what you would had originally spent.

In other words, if something was worth 100,000 bolivars, pay for it with a credit card (if you had one). Wait a few months, and then pay the 100,000 debt to your bank when those 100,000 have lost half of its value. This “glitch” stopped working once credit limits were pulverized, though.

We continued with our lives as best as we could, or as best as you can all things considered. The new treatment was working, and her cancer had “stabilized,” as in, it wasn’t getting better, but it wasn’t getting worse, which meant progress.

I distracted myself during those lengthy hours at the waiting room by browsing social media, talking to people, and having fun. Some of the main topics at the time, such as the upcoming 2016 U.S. presidential election, Brexit, the local socialist disaster, and other national and international subjects made up for some entertaining and often funny conversations and shitposts.

It was either that or pay attention to the reruns of Caso Cerrado that were often airing on the waiting room’s television screen.

My mom had to play the cancer card to finally get the hospital to approve her retirement — however, she was given a “special” retirement and not a full-fledged one, which meant that she only got about 75% of the full pension. A full pension wasn’t already a lot of money to begin with.

That was it, that was her reward for 16 years of continued service at the Pain and Palliative Care Unit of the Miguel Perez Carreño Hospital in Caracas. Cancer didn’t slow down my mother, and while she could not perform surgery she worked part time using one of her specialties: Occupational Health. 

A friend of hers offered a job as an outsourced Occupational Health specialist for Coca Cola Venezuela. I got a similar job but as an office assistant, which allowed me to drive her back and forth.

The new collapsing Venezuela became our new normal. The shortages worsened, the water rations became routine, the ID and fingerprint-based weekly rations. Rather than address the worsening shortages by easing the socialist price and currency controls that caused them in the first place, Maduro implemented CLAP: Local Committees for Supply and Production.

CLAP, which still exists to this day, is a program that sees local Communal Council (socialist civilian organizations spread across every community in the country that directly respond to the ruling socialist party) distribute monthly boxes or bags of low quality, often rotten subsidized food.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that CLAP is a program riddled with corruption, money laundering accusations, and everything you’d expect from the socialist regime.

A representative from the local Communal Council held a meeting in our building to explain the wonders and “benefits” of this program. Some signed up voluntarily out of need, and enrolled my mother in due to her cancer. 

By the time of the first anniversary of her chemotherapy we had become quite friendly with the staff of that clinic, the patients, and everyone else receiving treatment. I started tweeting more about the Venezuelan situation, explaining to friends and strangers alike how inflation, shortages, and the rest of our collective woes were to the best of my ability, sometimes with dark humor and jokes whenever appropriate.

Shortages of toiletries became so severe that there were several times where I had to get bar soap or toilet paper through black market dealers. Sometimes, a person riding a motorcycle would arrive near my home to deliver the goods as if it were drugs or something shady of the sorts.

The medicine shortages began to affect us even more during 2016, and the pilgrimages to pharmacies became a daunting task of going to a place and hoping they’d have one or two things at least — then going to another place and hope you’ll find another of the much-sought upon meds, and so on.

Omeprazole, one of the world’s simplest stomach-related meds, became extremely hard to find. Levothyroxine, which I need to treat my thyroid problems, was nowhere to be found. Worst of all, the Maduro regime’s gross mismanagement led to Venezuela stopping the import of some more important meds, such as Docetaxel, one half of my mom’s treatment at the time.

With no other options available she had to take the other half  only, right as her cancer was about to go into remission.

Still, for all the emotional burdens and Venezuelan-induced woes, 2016 was a decent year, and it felt hopeful in some ways. I started to write the very first early and rough pages of my fiction novel on that Christmas.  We had our hopes very high, and we hoped for the best as 2017 began, as what else could one do at the time?

The socialist regime had been in power for about 18 years on 2017, and by then it shouldn’t had surprised anyone inside and outside of the country that the regime, rather than solve the woes its negligence caused, would instead capitalize on them to tighten its grip on Venezuelans — and that’s exactly what they did with the Carnet de la Patria (“ID of the Fatherland”).

Think of it as a supra Identity Card above a Venezuelan’s plain old ID, except this one is tied to the Patria (“Fatherland”) platform, a system that the regime built with China’s help, and which is largely inspired by the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system. The Patria platform contains an extensive amount of data of each and every registered Venezuelan, where they live and whom they live with, work, health, and other personal data.

Most importantly, though, the Fatherland ID is your gateway to the Patria system’s “Fatherland Bonuses,” a series of monetary stipends that won’t make anyone rich anytime soon, but which many people, now impoverished by socialism, relied on to be able to afford something to eat at least. The CLAP subsidized food program was also tied to the Fatherland platform.

The regime expanded the Fatherland platform as time went on, adding “features” such as controlling and managing one’s monthly fuel rations, COVID vaccination records, and other modules, some of which were eventually phased out, for example, the regime’s Petro failed cryptocurrency scam.

Our bills continued to accumulate, and inflation began to become heavier and heavier on our shoulders. My mother’s family health insurance plan’s renewal costs became much higher too, so I opted out of mine so we could afford my mother’s and brother’s

Venezuela’s [Socialist] Supreme Court dealt another blow to the castrated opposition-led parliament, and passed a ruling granting itself all legislative faculties, essentially usurping the power of the National Assembly, which they weren’t able to use in the first place.

This was the “last straw,” the spark that ignited a series of intense protests in Venezuela. The Maduro regime amped up its repressive apparatus and even banned the import of medicines and medical supplies that protesters used such as gas masks, gloves, bandages, or even antacids — which, I was told, could be used to neutralize the effects of tear gas.

Banning antacids imports inevitably led to a massive shortage of them across pharmacies. Chemotherapy always did a number on my mom’s digestive system, and now there were no antacids anywhere. In lieu of that, I had to give her a mixture of water and baking soda.

The oncologist continued to suggest my mother receive the partial treatment despite my mom insisting that she kept feeling worse. My mother started to feel displeased with the attention and treatment her oncologist was giving her (or lack thereof), especially with the indifference she perceived, and decided to switch doctors and went with a man that was highly recommended to her.

Her new oncologist decided on a new treatment for her due to the continued unavailability of the one she was under — added to the fact that after having received a partial treatment for so long said treatment was no longer effective. The new combination: Ifosfamine and Mesna, was just as hard to find, but not impossible.

During those days I experienced something I’ll never forget. It was an afternoon, and I was accompanying my mother in “BADAN,” a private pharmacy chain that specializes in antineoplastic treatments, among other specialties.

Of course, there was a large line full of people desperately searching for medicine. The line was so large that BADAN had set up a parallel line in which people could first ask if they had what they were looking for. A resounding “No” or “sorry, we ran out of it” was almost always the answer, sparing people getting disappointed by waiting in the longer, standard service line.

There was this young brown skinned-woman to my left, definitely younger than me, early 20s perhaps. She was very distraught —  and her anguished face is something I won’t ever forget. She was waiting on that preliminary line right as I waited on the normal one after knowing that they had what I was looking for.

When it was her turn to be attended to and ask, she pulled a piece of paper from her backpack and began to recite a list of medicine that she needed for her seizures. Not a single one of them was available. 

She broke down in tears, saying that she had been without treatment for weeks and this place was her last hope and couldn’t take it anymore. I pray to God that she’s safe and sound.

I continued to play World of Warcraft, and by now I had a method to convert its in-game currency into Bolivars using clever but borderline grey area methods. While it was a profitable endeavor it wasn’t something I could rely on in the long term. Then, one day, I went viral because of it.

The Venezuelan Bolivar continued to plummet so fast that World of Warcraft’s in-game currency became more valuable than it, I officially was making far more money playing that game than my regular job. I tweeted about this and it went viral beyond my wildest dreams. It spread everywhere: From Fortune Magazine to Fox News, from China to America, the news was replicated in all corners of the world.

Funny enough, I was completely passed out from exhaustion the afternoon when people started to find out about it. I fell asleep with my laptop on, and was startled by so many notification messages that I thought something bad had happened.

I was overwhelmed by this, to say the least. At the same time, I found myself with a wider reach for my Venezuelan-related tweets and the possibility of receiving help for my mother, so I started setting up ways to receive foreign assistance, and ways to be able to use that financial assistance locally. 

The protests continued to intensify over the next few days. We had a close encounter with the brutality of the National Guard in one July 2017 afternoon. I was driving my mother to the clinic for her scheduled chemotherapy when we found ourselves stuck in a traffic jam on a one way lane. Suddenly, a stampede of protesters running away from the Bolivarian National Guard ran towards us as they escaped from a rain of pellets and copious amounts of tear gas. 

Every vehicle in that one-way lane panicked, my mom and I included. The vehicles began to desperately try to escape from the chaos in reverse, my mother’s car was heavily scratched as a result but we thankfully made it out.