Nick never had a chance to say goodbye
to Claire when she left the chemo room half an hour later, for he had his head
buried in a basin, puking his guts out.
This kept up hours after he was taken back to his room, and as he lay in
bed, vomiting repeatedly, he thought for sure he had died and gone to
hell. And if he hadn’t yet, he wanted
to. Die, that was. He had never felt so bad in his entire life.
But, eventually, the nausea faded, and
the vomiting stopped. Weak and
exhausted, yet relieved, Nick fell into a dreamless sleep.
The rest of the week was both boring
and torturous, with Nick taking chemo on alternating days. And at the end of the week came what Nick had
been dreading the most – the surgery to insert his catheter.
As it turned out, the procedure was barely
surgery. Nick was taken to a sterile
room, where he was givens injections of local anesthetics and sedatives to
relax him and dull the pain. Though he
would have rather been asleep, he was awake through the whole thing.
A young male doctor who looked only a
few years old than Nick did the procedure, explaining it as he went along. “I’m threading the catheter into your
subclavian vein now,” the doctor would say, and though Nick could not really
feel the pain, he would wince.
But eventually it ended. The doctor carefully taped a big piece of
gauze to Nick’s chest, hiding the catheter before Nick could see it.
“Now,” he said. “Before I let you go back to your room, we
need to discuss how to care for your catheter.”
Nick made a face; it sounded like the catheter was his new pet guinea
pig or something. The doctor didn’t seem
to notice though and continued seriously, “You need to clean the area around
the catheter opening and change the gauze dressings daily. For the first two weeks, you have to keep the
area dry. Either cover it with plastic
wrap while taking a shower, or take a bath or sponge bath and keep it dry. After that, you can shower normally, but make
sure you change the dressing as soon as you get done – you don’t want it to
stay wet. It should take at least six
weeks for the area to fully heal; after that, you can use soap and water on the
area and cover the opening with just a band-aid. Oh, and finally, no swimming.”
Nick had been nodding along, only half
paying attention, but at these words, he looked up with a jolt. “No swimming?” he repeated. “You mean just until it heals, right?”
“No… I mean no swimming as long as you
have the catheter,” the doctor reiterated.
“Catheters can easily become infected, and swimming in dirty water will
most likely cause an infection. And when
you’re on chemo, infections can be especially dangerous because your immune
system is weakened. So absolutely no
swimming.”
Nick’s heart sank. Swimming was one of his favorite ways of
exercising; he loved the water, loved his pool, loved the ocean… and now it was
all being taken away from him. Just like
everything else. His bone cells, his
hair, his looks… his hopes, his dreams, his future…
His life.
***
The following day was Saturday, the
best day of the week, in Nick’s opinion.
And that Saturday was especially good, for after two agonizing weeks in
the hospital, he was finally going home.
He had been waiting all week for this blessed day; his song “Is It
Saturday Yet?” had taken on new meaning.
As he drove himself home that morning,
the world around him seemed much different.
Looking out the windshield as he drove, the sky seemed bluer than
normal, the grass greener. People were
everywhere, in cars, on bikes, walking down the sidewalks… going about their
usual business. And though he knew it
was irrational, it made him angry. And
jealous. How could these people act so
normally, like nothing was wrong, when he was on chemotherapy for a form of
bone cancer? How could their lives seem
so in order when his was in turmoil?
It was so unfair. But life itself was unfair. If things were fair, Nick, who had once had
everything going for him, would not have gotten cancer.
But things were not fair.
Nick pulled through the tall gates
enclosing his property and parked his car in the driveway. He shut off the ignition but did not get out
right away, instead sitting and gazing up at his sprawling mansion. Home sweet home. Well, things definitely weren’t sweet now,
but still, he was glad to be home.
Opening his door, he struggled to crawl out of the car and grabbed his
crutches, opting to leave his overnight bag (more like two-week bag) in the
car; he didn’t feel like trying to haul it into the house right then.
The walk up to the front door was
slower than ever; Nick felt very weak – whether it was because of the chemo or
just lying around for two weeks, he did not know – and his left shoulder and
upper chest were tender from the catheter, so trying to hoist himself around on
crutches was not at all easy. But
eventually, he made it indoors and stopped just inside the foyer, panting, his
arms trembling from exertion.
Immediately, he heard the familiar
sound of toenails scraping against the hardwood floor as his dogs came tearing into
the foyer to greet their master, their tails in the air, happily yapping.
“Hey, boys,” Nick greeted them tiredly,
as the pugs scrambled around his feet.
One of them jumped, knocking against his left knee, and he gasped in
pain. “Ow, damn you!” he cursed, nudging
the small dog away with one of his crutches.
Whimpering, the animal slunk away, and when he did not bend down to pet
the others, they immediately followed suit.
“God, I’m such a friggin’ loser,” Nick
muttered, as he stood there in the doorway, watching the dogs abandon him and
still trying to catch his breath from the trek into the house. Only weeks ago, he had been in great shape,
his body muscled from working out. Now
it seemed he was already starting to waste away. Suddenly both frustrated and furious, he
slammed the door as hard as he could. It
snapped shut with a bang that shook the entire room. Behind him, there was a loud crash and the
tinkling of broken glass. Turning
awkwardly around, Nick saw that his painting of the ocean had fallen off the
wall again. Grunting, he leaned his
crutches against the wall and, with effort, bent down to pick up the
picture. As soon as he did, shards of
glass fell from the frame. Turning it
over, he saw that this time, the glass face of the frame had totally
shattered. It was ruined; he would need
to get a new piece of glass for it another day.
With a sigh, he sat the painting carefully down on the floor, where it
sat forlornly, jagged pieces of glass still clinging to the rim of the
frame. Symbolically, it reminded him of
his own life.
Broken.
***