Radiate (18 page)

It sounds like a compliment, but there’s also something ominous in his words.

“I’ll do what I have to.”

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of faith.

—Henry Ward Beecher

We’re moving you, Hayley,” Ginger tells me Sunday afternoon.

I look up from my laptop where I’ve been rewatching a YouTube video that Lora sent me of the routine the squad took to camp. Sadly, I’m not with them, but thankfully there hasn’t been any more talk about replacing me on the squad.

“Where am I going?” I ask.

“They’re moving you off the orthopedic floor to the general hospital area.”

My bottom lip pokes out. “Does that mean I’m losing you and Rochelle?”

She cocks her red head. “You’ll be fine. They’ve got a great staff down on the fourth floor.”

This totally blows. I love my nurses, and they’ve really been here for Mom and me. It’s a move in the right direction, though. I’ll get this chemo and radiation over, and then I can get home. I won’t even think about that first game against Emmanuel High. It’s on their turf, anyway. This way, I’ll make my debut on our home field. I’m already memorizing these dance moves in my head for when I can start performing them.

“They’re moving you, Hay,” Gretchen reports as she bursts into the room.

Mom rushes in behind her and shoves a Hallmark card in front of me. “Here, sign this. I also got a lovely box of chocolates from the gift shop for Ginger and Rochelle for all their wonderful help.”

“Awww, that’s sweet,” I say as I nab my pen. I write a gushing thanks to my nurses and sign my name and a smiley face.

Gretchen and Mom pack up my few belongings and all of the get-well cards scattered around the room. I gather my e-reader, computer, cell phone, and all of my other personal items into my backpack, ready to move to the new room. Mom does the same with her stuff, too. Soon, an orderly shows up with a wheelchair to take me to the new digs with Mom and Gretchen in tow.

I say goodbye to the room that’s been my home for the last month. At the nurses’ station, Ginger and Rochelle both give us hugs and thank us for the candy. A lump surrounds my throat as I’m being wheeled away; emotions clogging and choking me. I want to cry, but I don’t know why. It’s not that I’m sad to leave the room. It’s just that so much has happened to change me and the course of my life in the last few weeks. I haven’t worried about pool parties, tan lines, or college applications this summer. This has been some heavy shit to deal with, even if I haven’t allowed myself to truly let it sink in.

If I do dwell on it or slush around the details too much, I might actually need those psychologists Dr. Dykema has set up for me.

Positive. Focus on the positive.

It’s hard to, though, when I replay the dance video in my head, marveling at how awesome the squad looks. My pulse trips up a notch knowing they’re at camp without me. I wonder, too, if I’ll be able to return to tumbling. Will I have the same flexibility I did before? Will I still be able to lift Lora over my head? And what about this whole thing about some of my nerve being removed? Dr. Dykema never talked about that before. Is that going to keep me from cheering? It can’t!

Nothing can.

Seriously. I’ve come this far. What more do I have to endure?

Once I’m settled in my new bed—the room’s layout is the mirror image of the room I was in before—I get to hear more of what’s to come for me when Dr. Stanislovitis walks in with another doctor. This guy is tall, completely good-looking (in an older-guy way), and has chocolate brown eyes.

“Hi, Hayley. I’m Dr. Sampson. I’ll be administering your chemotherapy.”

“Okay,” I say, smiling at him. Cheekily, I think he can administer anything he wants to me.

He takes the chair next to me, and I sense there’s about to be a flirting buzz kill.

Mom moves to my side, as does Gretchen. I watch as my sister lowers her eyes at Dr. Sampson, too, in a totally flirtatious way. I hope we can concentrate on what he’s here to talk about.

Dr. Sampson goes through the motions of explaining what they’re going to do.

“We’ll insert a needle into your aorta artery in your groin area and thread a tube down to your knee so the chemotherapy is directed right at the spot where your tumor was.”

I cringe at the words “groin area” and the thought that doctors and nurses will be examining me... there. How mortifying! Heat spreads across my face at the mere thought.

“And that will drip in her for five days?” Mom asks.

The cute doctor nods. “We’ll check it at three days to see if the full course has gone in. Five days is standard, and then you can check out of the hospital.”

Energy bolts me upright. “Like go home?”

“Well, you’ll have your radiotherapy as an outpatient.”

I slump again. The calendar has flipped. Time is running out. School is about to start.

“Now, Hayley,” he begins, “I must talk to you about the side effects of the chemotherapy.”

I gulp down. Oh right... side effects. Like... bad shit.

My hands begin shaking and the pain of the incision on my leg intensifies momentarily. I’ve been good about not asking for too many pain shots, but I just might need one now.

Dr. Sampson continues. “The most common side effects are depression, extreme fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, dehydration, and most of all, hair loss or hair thinning. You can also experience brittle nails, acid reflux, dry mouth, dry skin, infertility, headaches, weight loss or weight gain, and other symptoms.”

Ack! He sounds like one of those commercials on television for this, that, or the other drug that has horrendous side effects to the point where you wonder why anyone would actually take it. While I hear him list everything, I can’t wrap my mind around the reality of each symptom. I’m on information overload and I just want to run screaming from the room, from this cute doctor, and from everything I have to face. But that would be running away from my reality.

Besides, I’m not actually in the most optimal flight condition.

“We can monitor you and medicate any of these issues as they arise. Most side effects take place a few weeks after your treatment is completed.”

What can I say? I have no choice. My cancer was malignant, and they have to be sure it doesn’t spread anywhere else. That’s the important thing.

I shrug my understanding. “So, we’ll get started tomorrow?”

“That we will,” Dr. Sampson says. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

I’ll see what happens then.

***

The procedure to get the chemotherapy tube inside me was humiliating!

Not only was cute Dr. Sampson doing it, but a not-so-nice nurse named Mae with long fingernails shaved my... er... private area before the doctor made the incision in my groin area and slid the tube into place. Thank heavens I couldn’t feel it moving inside of me. Now
that
would have been too out-of-a-horror-movie creepy for me.

Now I sit in my bed, unable to move too much because of the potent chemicals pouring into my leg.

My new nurse, Rachel Mary, comes and checks on the fluid levels several times a day, in addition to checking my vitals and making sure I’m doing well, in general. I’m glad she’s taking care of me instead of Mae with the claws.

On that long list of side effects, I’m totally experiencing the nausea and upset-stomach part.

“Can you eat some soup?” Rachel Mary asks.

I shake my head, cringing at the thought of eating anything. The smell of the noodles makes me want to puke. I gag at the salty smell, and the nurse moves quickly to get me a bedpan.

Ugh... not pretty.

She just smiles, hands me a wet rag, and cleans up my mess. God love her—and all of these nurses—for taking care of me. Did I mention I’m using a bedpan because I can’t get up? Seriously, there’s no way to be modest when you’re in the hospital.

It’s Wednesday afternoon, and I’m bored shitless. If I watch one more talk show, I’ll go ballistic. Soap operas are stupid and badly acted. I refuse to watch the news and hear other people’s sad stories. Mine is pathetic enough.

I’m starting to think this positive thinking isn’t going to work. Anger creeps down my arms, causing my hands to fist. The powerful chemical zipping through my blood system is changing me, eating away at me, taking a piece of me with it as it attempts to cleanse.

“What’s wrong, Hayley?” Gretchen asks. She’s got a Diet Coke for me. I hope I’ll be able to stomach it.

Irritation, rage, and resentment are my bedmates, and I sense my boiling point has been reached. “What’s
wrong?
What the hell is right?”

My sister’s eyes widen, and I can see she’s taken aback.

“What’s right in my life? I’m immobile in a hospital bed three hours from home. Two hours from where cheerleader camp is going on as we speak. But no, I’m not there, participating with my squad like I always dreamed of. I’m in a fricking hospital bed, puking my guts up because I have
cancer!
Cancer! How stupid is that? Cancer!”

Gretchen attempts to smooth out the situation. “Calm down, sweetie.”

I slam my fists to the bed. The IV bags rock back and forth on their perch.

“Calm down? I’ve been calm since the moment this was discovered. I’ve handled this the best way I can, but today, I am pissed. That’s what I am. Pissed off. Pissed off at whoever or whatever gave me this. Pissed off at all the doctors and nurses. Pissed off at this frickin’ chemo that’s making me feel this way. I haven’t eaten, and my leg hurts like holy hell. I just want this over with!” I don’t even realize how loudly I’m speaking. Gretchen’s face is ashen as she has no idea how to handle me right now.

I
don’t know how to handle me right now.

I want to lash out. I want others to hurt. I don’t want to be the only one in pain.

“And you . . .” I say to my sister, turning my ire on her. “Why did it take frickin’
cancer
to get you home? Would you have even come back in May for my graduation? Or just for the heck of it? Why did it take a family disaster to get you out of Boston?”

The nerve in Gretchen’s neck twitches. “Hayley, I’m here for you. I know you’re going through a horrible thing, and I just want to support you because you’re my little sister and I love you.”

“You have a horrible way of showing it,” I snap.

“I apologize for being absent and not keeping in—”

“Absent? It’s like no one knows anything about you or your life. I don’t even know what you do for a living. Do you even have a job? A boyfriend? I know nothing about you.”

Tears fill my sister’s eyes, and I’ve got my sick wish. Someone else is hurting. However, I’m the cause. Damn this medicine churning through me and fueling my bad attitude.

“I’ll tell you anything you want, Hayley,” Gretchen says with a sniff. “I can’t change the past. All I can do is make the present bearable and be here for you.”

I drop my head, and my long hair surrounds my face in a curtain of shame. I want to cry, but I don’t think my body is hydrated enough to produce tears.

“I’m sorry,” I say in a whisper.

Gretchen is on the bed with me, hugging me tightly to her and rocking us back and forth.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, kiddo. You’re going through hell. No kid should have to go through this at all. You have us, though.” She takes my hands in hers. “You have
me.
”

The words are so quiet that I almost don’t know I’ve said them. “Please don’t leave.”

“I won’t, sweetie.”

We hold each other, and I let a few tears of frustration and humiliation fall onto my sister’s designer shirt. This is how Dad finds us when he comes into the room.

“Everything okay here?”

My sister and I pull apart. “Just some sisterly bonding,” Gretchen says, and steps away.

Dad replaces her and runs his hand over my forehead. “How are you feeling, Little Kid?”

“Nauseated, yet hungry.”

He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a slightly smushed Snickers bar. “I read online that chocolate is a good thing to fight off the nausea. Wanna try?”

“Should I?”

Dad waggles the chocolate bar at me, and a smile takes over on my face, replacing my dour behavior. I snag the treat, rip open the packaging, and take a bite. The sugary sweetness crashes together with the saltiness of the peanuts and gooey goodness of the nougat and caramel. I moan my pleasure as it goes down nicely into my stomach and doesn’t cause World War III. It’s very simply the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.

“That’s my girl,” Dad says with a smile.

“It’s not making me sick.”

“That’s a good sign. I’ll sneak in some more for you.”

“Thanks so much, Daddy,” I say with a mouthful of candy. “You’re the best.”

God knows the sacrifices he’s making being here this week. I don’t even ask who’s watching the store or feeding Leeny. Dad’s the man. He’s doing it all. Working. Traveling. Probably gobs more that I don’t even know about.

He’s taken care of everything. He’s taking care of me.

A lot of kids in school have problems with their parents, that is, if both of them are even around. Ashlee’s mom is an alcoholic and her dad forgets to make regular child support payments. That sucks for her. Skipper O’Rourke’s mom died from heart failure when he was eleven. Shelly’s ’rents are divorced. Even my partner, Lora, and her mom are by themselves. That’s why she’s so close to her Uncle Ross. I guess family is what you make it. Mine’s not perfect, but they’re there.

I always took for granted that Mom and Dad were there for me, reliable, and just parents.

I look at Dad now as he takes my empty Snickers wrapper from me and tosses it over to the garbage can like an NBA player.

I’ll never take my parents for granted ever again.

Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow.