Today is the first time I haven’t felt like writing since I learned how to write. There have been days when I didn’t know what to write about, but the desire to write was always there.
Writing is such a part of who I am. My identity. Cancer is not only eating away at my body, it’s eating away at who I am and what I love. I don’t consider myself a very strong person. I don’t know how much I can take before I break. I just know I feel the crack becoming longer and wider each time the cancer devours another part of me.
The effects of chemo are worse than having cancer. A person could live for years with cancer growing inside them and never know it until a doctor examines them and tests tell them so. I used to wonder how a person could have cancer all over their body, only have a few months to live, and not feel the effects of it. It’s because cancer is a quiet bastard, that sneaks in and consumes you before you realize what’s happened.
Chemo, on the other hand, is loud and proud. It won’t let you forget that it is a constant presence in your life. Not only does it let you know while it’s invading your body at the clinic, it follows you home and moves in. I started feeling the effects shortly after I had gotten home from treatment number one.
At first, I thought it was all the stress and anxiety I had during the day, that was crashing in on me. As the day went on, I felt progressively worse. The first visible sign of the cancer killing chemicals flowing through my body was the first time I went to pee. It was red and freaked me out. I really should have read all the info Dr. Lang gave me about chemotherapy.
The second side effect was the sensation of heat building up inside. It started in my chest and then radiated throughout my entire body. That, coupled with the phantom pain I was still experiencing, made me want to blow my brains out.
The next day I woke up, after only an hour’s worth of sleep, flushed red all over my body and my face was hot and puffy. Later that day, I started getting very intense indigestion and some hiccups. The hiccups were not your normal type. They were so forceful that they shook my body and they lasted for an hour or so at a time.
The nausea started settling in, a couple of hours after the indigestion started. This was not your normal nausea in which you would feel a wave that would crest and fall through you. Chemo nausea was a sharp pain that continuously stabbed at my stomach. It reminded me of the phantom pain I had. The pain shocks you because it’s as if it comes out of nowhere. Each time I threw up, my throat burned a little more until it was completely raw. The nausea was relentless. I had thrown up all the contents of my stomach after three episodes. From then on, I had dry heaves that left my stomach and back in unbearable pain.
I always thought chemo took your appetite away. Maybe for some but for me, my appetite skyrocketed. I was starving. I wanted to eat and I tried to, but I had developed a couple of ulcers in my mouth and the pain I felt when any food or drink washed over them wasn’t worth it to me.
By day three post first chemo I was completely exhausted. I don’t mean a little tired. I mean I could barely lift my head up off the pillow exhausted. I had lived on milkshakes and apple juice for three days before the diarrhea started and it burned as if someone had taken a hot poker and shoved it up my ass and left it there.
I felt depression setting in. I was still mourning the loss of my leg and the effects of the chemo were causing me to fall deeper into a feeling of despair. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t strong enough. I considered calling Dr. Lang and telling him I wanted to stop the chemo and would just take my chances.
Noah called me several times a day wanting to come over, but I just couldn’t let him see me this way. Maybe I could see him on my off weeks. Besides, his second semester had started and there was Brooke. He didn’t need to spend time watching me throw up. I also had decided that I needed to pull away from him some. After the way I felt watching him walk out the door Christmas day, I knew I was becoming more dependent on him and at some point, wouldn’t be able to let him go. I made a promise to myself that I was not going to burden Noah with any of this. I wanted him to have a happy normal life, not one being a nurse to me.
My second round of chemo was even worse, if that was possible. I was in the bathroom puking my guts out when I heard voices in the hallway. It was Noah. He and Emily were arguing. “Noah, she’s having a bad day.”
“I need to see her, Emily.”
“Now is not a good time. She’s very sick today. The chemo hit her harder this week.”
“I want to take care of her.”
“Noah, please go…”
“No. She’s pushed me away since Christmas and I don’t understand why. I promised her we’d get through this together. I haven’t seen her in two weeks. I need to see her. Please, Emily.”
I heard a soft knock on the door and Emily asked, “Manda, are you okay? Can I come in?”
I sat back on the tile floor, my back resting against the tub. “Yes.” My voice sound so weak. The exhaustion had set in earlier this week than before. I was barely able to sit up.
The door slowly opened and Emily stepped in, closing it behind her. She got a rag, ran warm water over it, and pressed it against my forehead. “Noah’s here and he wants to see you.”
“Emily…”
“I told him you were sick, but…Manda, if you could see the look on his face. It broke my heart. He looks so sad and lost. He wants to be here for you.”
“He doesn’t need to spend his life taking care of me,” I whispered.
“But I think he wants to.”
“I want to go back to bed now.”
Emily started helping me up. I was still getting use to my new leg. The leg guy said eventually it would feel like an extension of me. Right now, it felt like it weighed a ton and was awkward as hell to maneuver.
Once I was up on my feet, my knees felt weak and collapsed underneath me. My knee caps hit the tile floor hard and sent a piercing pain up my legs. I started to cry uncontrollably. Then I felt the warm protective arms of Noah scoop me up and carry me into my bedroom, all the while he whispered into my hair, “I’ve got you, Tweet. I’ll take care of you.”
I couldn’t stop crying. I felt so physically and mentally defeated, I couldn’t pull myself together. Emily was standing in the doorway with tears running down her face. Sitting in front of me on the bed, Noah brought his hands up to my face, and wiped my tears away with this thumbs.
I looked at him through blurred vision and said, “I’m so ashamed.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I can’t do anything for myself anymore. Every part of my body feels sick. I just want to die.” I looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Noah, tell them to let me go.” My sobs became so heavy, I was having a hard time catching my breath. I heard Emily crying louder.
Noah shifted to sit behind me and enveloped me in his arms, my back pressed securely to his chest. He buried his face in my neck. I felt it get wet with his tears as he whispered, “I can’t do that. I need you too much. Don’t leave me.”
I fell asleep and slept soundly the entire night for the first time in over a week. When I woke up the next morning, the reason why I slept so well still had his arms around me.
Dalton got me through my bad days as much as possible. He called every day to check on me and had come over to hang out when he was having a good day. He even went to the hospital with me when they removed my portacath. It got infected. Since all these chemo drugs were in me, my immune system was shot to hell, so the catheter needed to be removed immediately. I told Dr. Lang I didn’t want another one placed. I hated the idea and look of something under my skin sticking out of my body. I would just suck it up and deal with the IV sticks for chemo.
I don’t know how I would have gotten through everything without Dalton. My family and Noah were a tremendous help, but they could only empathize. Dalton knew what my body was feeling and how my mind was trying to process it all. I didn’t have to explain anything to him. He read me just as well as Noah.
I had become very attached to Dalton, in a relatively short period of time. I could tell my parents and Emily were concerned that I was becoming too attached by the looks on their faces whenever they saw us together or I talked about him. I didn’t know what my feelings were toward him. I just knew I needed him in my life. I always thought there was one soul mate out there for each person. Dalton made me think twice about that. Maybe some people are lucky enough to have two soul mates in their lifetime.
The on weeks of chemo were like living in that movie Groundhog’s Day. I had four cycles so far and they were almost identical, same nausea, vomiting, exhaustion, etc. The only good thing about on weeks was that Dalton and I would spend time together. We had started spending more time with each other during our off weeks, but it was during our chemo that I felt we bonded the most. We were both stuck in that room for at least four hours, so there wasn’t much else to do, but talk.
I felt like I had known Dalton all my life and it had just been two months. There was a comfort I felt with him that I didn’t with other people right now including my family and even Noah to a certain degree. Ever since this whole cancer life had started, I had a constant craving to feel normal and Dalton satisfied that for me. Everyone else talked to me about the cancer or the amputation. Dalton helped me feel normal even while we were both being pumped full of chemicals.
“Favorite movie?” he asked.
“I have four actually.”
“You can’t have four,” he protested.
“Why not?”
“Favorite, a person or thing regarded with favor or preference. You can have a favorite drama and a favorite comedy, but you can’t have multiple favorites in the same category.” I looked at him with my eyebrows furrowed together. Him and his crazy rules.
“I have four…” I held up four fingers and wiggled them in front of his face. “…favorite comedies.” He just huffed and shook his head at me.
“The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, The Jerk, and Forest Gump.”
“Aw, I see you are a fan of the classics.”
“Oh, and anything with George Clooney in it.” He shook his head at me again. “What is your favorite?”
“Die Hard.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“All of them.”
“You just berated me for having four favorites. There are five Die Hard movies.”
“They’re installments of the same movie.”
“Your logic is convoluted.”
“A little too intellectual for you to comprehend?”
“Bite me.”
“Hot damn! I’ve been waiting two months for you to let me do that.” I laughed out loud startling Estelle, one of the elderly ladies who had her chemo on the same day as Dalton and I.
“Favorite line from a movie?” I asked.
“Are you serious? Yippee ki-yay, motherf*cker.” I made no attempt at hiding my eye roll.
Dalton closed his eyes and rested his head back against the chair. We sat in a relaxed silence. Looking around the room I noticed only Dalton, Estelle, and I were the only ones left. “Hey, Dalton?”
“Mmmhmm?”
“Ashley isn’t here today and she wasn’t here the last chemo day.” Ashley was a little girl I had seen the first day of chemo. She was quiet and kept to herself, but very sweet. “I wonder why.”
“Dead.” His words shocked me.
“What?” He turned his head toward me and opened his eyes.
“I said she’s dead.”
“Dalton, that’s a terrible thing to say. You don’t know.”
“Yes I do. I went to her funeral last week.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have gone.”
“I didn’t think your first cancer funeral should be that of a 10-year-old’s. They’re pretty rough.”
I stared straight ahead, not knowing what to say. I felt a warm hand cover mine and lightly squeeze, causing me to look over at him. “Hey, are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. I thought maybe she had gotten better and didn’t need to come here anymore. Stupid, right?”
“Not stupid, just naive.”
“Are you afraid of dying?” I asked.
He turned his head and looked toward the ceiling, contemplating his answer. “Yes, I’m afraid of dying, but I’m not afraid of being dead.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Dying is a process. Dead means you’ve already arrived at your destination.” He turned to me, his dark blue eyes pierced mine as if they could see all the way into my soul. “What about you? Are you afraid of dying?”
“Lately, I feel like I’m afraid of everything, dying, living, Tuesdays.”
I noticed that we were still holding hands. It felt really nice and really right. I was becoming confused about the feelings I was developing for this boy. They weren’t as strong as my feelings for Noah, but given time I was afraid they could be. I needed to change the subject.
Pulling my hand away from his and using it to tuck some of my hair behind my ear, I said, “My friend, Lisa is coming for a visit next weekend. It’s the beginning of her spring break and she’s going to spend a couple of days here before heading to Florida.”
“This is the cute little redhead you showed me a picture of?”
“Yep.”
“You think she’d let me bang her?”
“You’re a pig.”
“What?! I’m just asking. A cute little redhead, ready to blow off some steam during spring break…she might as well start by blowing me.” I narrowed my eyes at him.
I had texted a picture of Dalton to Lisa when I first met him and she thought he was hot.
“She probably would. She thinks you’re hot.”
He slid across the back of the chair in my direction. A huge grin plastered across his face. “And how does she know what I look like?”
“I may have texted her a picture of you a few weeks ago.”
“Sweet. Do you have a pen and some paper?”
“I think so.” I searched through my bag and came up with a pen and scrap of paper. “Here.”
He straightened up in his chair and flipped his hand toward me. “Take this down,” he said.
“When did I become your secretary?”
“Gatorade, vitamins, protein drink, double A batteries, pancake syrup, Vaseline, a paint brush-soft bristles, rope, duct tape, and a pack of pens. I’m out of pens. Oh, and…” He slid back across the back of the chair in my direction, smiling, and in a low voice said, “Trojan Magnum, box of 36, the pleasure pack sampler.” He leaned away, grinning at me. I just stared at him, speechless and tossed the pen and paper in his lap.