Nick
Six months after my stem cell transplant, I was finally starting
to look and feel more like my old self again.
The stem cells had done their job, replacing the cells that were
wiped out by the chemo, so that my blood counts were back to normal, and my
immune system was working again. I had
no more restrictions on what I could eat or where I could go, and I had the
energy to do the things I wanted to, as long as I paced myself.
Along with working on my album, I’d been working on my body,
trying to get back into the kind of shape I’d been in before I got cancer. I ate healthy, went to the gym when I felt up
to it, and tried to take care of myself.
It was a long, slow process, but I could feel myself getting stronger
every day, as I built up the muscle tone I’d lost lying around in the
hospital. My hair had started growing
back, and I was feeling more confident about way I looked.
In mid-March, I posed for a photo shoot for my solo album’s cover
art. We kept the pictures simple: me in front of a white background, looking
into the camera; me on the beach, looking serious and reflective; me in my knit
cap, looking… I don’t know, like a guy who’s been through something traumatic
and lived to tell the tale, I guess.
That was how I was starting to think of myself: as a survivor.
I was actually looking forward to going to Cary’s Relay for Life again
in the summer, so that I could wear one of those purple shirts with pride. Maybe I wouldn’t shout it from the rooftops,
but I wouldn’t hide it anymore, either.
I’d had cancer, and I’d survived it.
So far.
The thing about cancer is, it’s not that simple or straight
forward. It’s not like a race, where
there’s a certain route to run and an end in sight. There’s no finish line, unless you count
death. You can put the disease behind
you, but even then, you still keep running and hope it doesn’t catch up. Everyone’s journey is different; for some,
it’s a sprint, and for others, it turns out to be a marathon. Sometimes it’s uphill, sometimes it’s down,
and sometimes, even when everything seems to be going smoothly, you run into
hurdles that you’ve got to get over. And
through it all, you’re tired and out of breath, your body aches, and sometimes,
you just feel like giving up, like falling down and dying, right there in the
middle of the road.
I didn’t want to die, but some days, it was still hard just to get
out of bed in the morning. The fatigue
wasn’t as bad, but I still got tired easily, and sometimes I woke up with a
splitting headache, feeling like I’d hardly slept. Most of the bone pain I’d suffered through
after the transplant had gone away, but my back had been bothering me for over
a month. I figured I’d pulled something
and liked to blame it on Cary trying to get me to swing dance on Valentine’s
Day, but she claimed I was just pushing myself too hard in the gym and got on
my case about taking it easy.
“Is your back still sore?” she asked that morning, when I hobbled
into the kitchen for breakfast, rubbing my lower back.
I yawned and reached for the ceiling, trying to stretch out my
spine and loosen up the muscles back there.
I was always stiff and sore in the morning, but once I got going, the
kinks usually worked themselves out.
“Yeah, a little. I’m fine,
though.”
She pursed her lips together, giving me the kind of look that told
me she thought I should get it checked out, but I didn’t think it was a big
deal. I had gone to a chiropractor at
the beginning of the month, and he hadn’t seemed too concerned, either. He couldn’t find anything that felt out of place
and, like Cary, told me I’d probably just strained a muscle in my efforts to
get back in shape. He’d poked and popped
my back, but the visit hadn’t really helped much.
Sometimes I wondered if these aches and pains weren’t side effects
from cancer treatments or working out too much, but just the natural signs of
getting older. After all, I’d turned
thirty-one in January; I was still young, but I wasn’t a kid anymore. My body had been through hell in the last
year, and I didn’t blame it for taking longer to recover than it used to.
“Just make sure you ask Dr. Subramanien about it when you see her
today, okay? Please? For me?”
Cary gave me a pleading look, which I returned with a big, cheesy grin.
“You got it, babe. I’ll be
sure to mention it.”
“Good. Thank you.” She smiled back, but she still looked like
she might not believe me. I would ask,
though; I wasn’t stupid.
I was going in to the outpatient clinic for my six-month
follow-up, which meant another round of tests like I’d had back in December, to
make sure my cancer was still in remission.
I’d gotten a clean bill of health back then, so I wasn’t worried, but I
knew it wouldn’t be wise to hide any complaints that might be signs of a
problem. Still, I was pretty sure Cary
was just being neurotic. The back pain
couldn’t be from cancer; I’d had completely different symptoms before my
diagnosis, and I wasn’t experiencing any of those things now – no cough or
shortness of breath, no fevers or night sweats, and no chest pain. I felt better that I had in months.
Still, I grunted in pain as I bent over to grab an orange out of
the fridge, and Cary noticed. “You’ve
got to get this taken care of,” she said softly, coming up behind me and
placing her hand on the small of my back.
While I stood at the counter, peeling my orange, she stayed behind me
and massaged my back, kneading up and down along my spine with the heels of her
hands. It sort of hurt, but it felt
good, too, like she was working out all the tension.
“Mm…” I groaned, closing my eyes.
“You’re amazing, you know that?”
I turned around and took her in my arms, kissing her. I didn’t know how I’d ever survived on my own
without her, especially when I was sick.
Even though she was working now, she still cooked dinner every night, kept
the condo clean, and kept me satisfied in bed.
She was like the perfect wife, without the marriage certificate, and I
loved her that way.
I knew she loved me, too.
She’d told me so, once, on Valentine’s Day, and not again since then,
but I didn’t need her to say it, and I didn’t feel pressed to say the words to
her. Our relationship had never been “by
the book,” so why should we have to define it?
We were happy together, and that was what mattered.
“Hm… well… I should probably go be amazing at work,” Cary said,
craning her neck to check the clock on the microwave behind me. “I’m sorry I can’t come with you today…”
“It’s no big deal. I’ve
been through this before on my own; I know the drill.” If I was being honest, I wished she was
coming to the appointment with me; it was going to be a long, boring day, most
of it spent waiting, and it would have been nice to have her around to help
pass the time and take my mind off the tests I had to have done, some of which
were going to suck. But I understood: she hadn’t been working long at her new job
and wouldn’t feel right asking for a day off yet.
“Well, call me if anything comes up, if you need me or anything.”
I nodded, but I knew I wouldn’t have any reason to call her. “Everything’ll be fine,” I assured her, as
she picked up her pink medical bag and headed out the door. Once she had left for work, I finished my
breakfast and went back to the bedroom to get dressed for my fun-filled day of
medical testing.
***
When I got to the cancer clinic,
a nurse took me right back.
“You’ve put on some weight since your last visit!” she exclaimed when
she got me on the scale. She made it
sound like a huge accomplishment. It was
nice to be praised for gaining weight, instead of criticized for it.
“All solid muscle,” I replied with a smirk, flexing my bicep for
her.
She laughed and led me back to an exam room, where she took my
vitals and gave me a gown to put on.
“Dr. Subramanien will be in to see you in a few minutes,” she promised
and then left me alone to change.
Dr. Submarine didn’t keep me waiting long. When she walked into the room, I noticed she
was wearing a bright yellow blouse under her white coat, and I thought, Yellow Submarine. I laughed inside at my own joke and struggled
to keep a straight face when she said hello and asked how I was doing.
“I’m good,” I said. “Been
feeling a lot better lately. I’ve gotten
back to work; I’m releasing a solo album soon, my first one in over eight
years.”
“That’s nice.
Congratulations,” she replied, sort of absently. “Can you lie back, please?”
I stretched out on the exam table and shut up while she stuck her
stethoscope down the front of my gown to listen to my heart and lungs. I should have known she’d be all business.
“Any problems with your port?”
“No. Hey, when can I get
that thing taken out? I mean, I don’t need
it anymore, right?” It would come in
handy for the blood draw that I knew was coming, but it was pretty useless
otherwise; I hadn’t gotten chemo through the port in six months.
Dr. Submarine gave me a knowing smile. “Let’s see how your tests turn out, and if
everything looks clear, we can set up an appointment to remove it.”
“Awesome.” The port really
hadn’t been that big of a deal, but it would still be a relief to get rid of
it. I would always have a little scar on
my chest from it, but at least I wouldn’t have a weird lump under my skin
anymore.
“Have you had any symptoms or side effects you’re concerned
about?” Dr. Submarine asked, as she poked and prodded me, feeling for swollen
lymph nodes, I guess.
“No…” I started to say, then remembered my promise to Cary that
morning. “Well, except for my back. I’ve been having this pain in my lower back,
but I think I just pulled a muscle or something. I’ve been working out a lot, trying to get
back into shape.”
“Why don’t you sit up, and I’ll take a look?”
I sat up again, shivering a little as her hands opened the back of
the gown and touched my bare skin. “I
saw a chiropractor a few weeks ago, but he didn’t help much,” I added, as she
felt up and down my spine.
“Well, I haven’t felt anything out of the ordinary, but I’ll order
a bone scan along with your usual work-up.
It may show us the cause of your back pain.”
I didn’t ask what she thought that cause could be, but in the back
of my mind, it occurred to me that a bone scan didn’t sound like a diagnostic
test for a muscle strain.
As I was shuttled around the clinic for all the scans and
procedures on the agenda that day, I realized it had been just about a year
since I’d gone through all this stuff for the first time. It was crazy to think that, a year ago, I’d
come to this clinic without a cancer diagnosis, without a clue of what to
expect, and with the feeling that I didn’t belong there. Everyone else was so old, I remembered
thinking. Old people got cancer. Sometimes little kids got it, too. But not guys my age, not thirty-year-olds who
were in the best shape of their life.
And now, in a weird way, I felt old. World-weary.
Wise. I’d seen and done it all
before, and I knew what was coming this time.
I didn’t get claustrophobic during the CT or PET scans. I didn’t flinch for the spinal tap or the
bone marrow biopsy. The blood draw was a
cinch, and the bone scan wasn’t bad either.
The tests had become routine, old hat to an experienced patient like me,
and nothing to stress out about.
Checking into the hospital for all this diagnostic stuff a year
ago had been like walking into a dark tunnel, completely blind. It had taken time for my eyes to adjust. But by now, I was almost through the tunnel,
and I could see the light at the end, and I knew that if I just kept heading in
the right direction, I’d make it out alive.
I just might not be the same person I’d been going in.
***
I left the clinic that afternoon without seeing Dr. Submarine
again, but her nurse told me she would call in a few days with my test
results. As far as I was concerned, no
news was good news, so that was fine with me.
When I got home, Cary was in the kitchen, cooking dinner. “Hi!” she said, putting down her spatula and
hurrying over. She gave me a kiss on the
lips and a tender hug, careful not to hurt my back. She must have known it would be more tender
than usual, after getting bone marrow and spinal fluid sucked out for testing. “How’d it go today?”
I shrugged. “It was
fine. Same old shit.”
“Did you talk to Dr. Subramanien?”
“About my back? Yeah, I
told her. She said she didn’t feel
anything out of place, but she made me get a bone scan…” I frowned, remembering the question I hadn’t
felt like asking Dr. Submarine. “What
does that check for, exactly, a bone scan?
Could it show cancer?”
Cary bit down on her bottom lip.
“It could…” she said slowly. “I
mean, cancer can spread to the bones, and the scan would show if it had. But there are lots of other things that could
be causing your back to hurt. It could
just be a lasting side effect of the transplant, or it could be something as
simple as a pulled muscle or a slipped disc from working out, like you thought. It’s probably nothing, but I’m glad you told
her so she could order the test and make sure.”
I nodded, but her confirmation that a bone scan could be used to
detect cancer had planted the first seeds of doubt in my mind.
“Why don’t you go lie down for awhile before dinner?” Cary
suggested. “I’m making homemade pizza; I
thought we could eat in the living room tonight, so you can stretch out on the
couch.”
“Yeah, okay…”
I wandered back to my bedroom and lay facedown on the bed, burying
my head in my pillow. It felt good to be
lying flat; I had a headache again, probably from the spinal tap. At least I didn’t have anywhere to be that
night; I could take it easy and would feel better by morning. It wasn’t like all those times on the tour,
when I’d had to lie flat in my bunk on the bus or on a bed in some strange hotel
room after Cary had injected chemo into my spine. How I’d made it through all that, I had no
idea. I couldn’t imagine doing it now,
or ever again.
I closed my eyes and was just started to doze off when I felt my
phone vibrating in my pocket. I boosted
myself up onto my elbows, grimacing at the pain in my back, and rolled over to
dig out my phone. I squinted down at the
caller ID, a little disoriented, and my stomach lurched as I saw the words UCLA Santa Monica flashing under the
number for the cancer clinic that I had programmed into my phone. I pressed the button to answer the call and
sat up, raising the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Nick? This is Dr.
Subramanien,” came my doctor’s soft, accented voice.
“Hey, what’s up, Doc?” I replied, as casually as I could, but this
time, I wasn’t laughing inside. My heart
was pounding. Why was she calling me
now, when the nurse had said it would take a few days?
“I’ve gotten back some of your test results, and I’d like to meet
with you in person to go over them. Are
you able to come back to the clinic this evening, or would you rather we set up
an appointment for tomorrow?”
I swallowed hard.
“Tonight? But…” I looked over at the clock by my bed; it was
way past five. “…isn’t the clinic closed
by now?”
“Yes, but I’m still here in my office. I’ll wait for you, if you’d like to come in
now.”
Maybe she always
works after hours, I tried to reassure myself, but it didn’t work. She had stayed late for me. That could only mean one thing…
“It’s important,” she added gently.
“O-okay. Um, I’m on my
way.”
I threw down the phone. My
mind was racing, and my heart was beating even faster. I sat there on the edge of my bed for a few
seconds, taking slow, shuddering breaths and trying to collect my
thoughts. They all led to the same
conclusion.
…I was about to get bad news.
***