The most awful thing about this is that my body is now a wasteland. It’s amazing how quickly friends abandon you when you’re out-of-control sick. Those who did come over didn’t know how to look me in the eye, couldn’t take their eyes off the bumps where my eyebrows used to be, off my weight gain (thanks, steroids) and the clear lack of my usual blond hair. It was awkward for everyone involved.
I’m thinking about this too much. I’m thinking about everything too much. Dark thoughts enter my head about what happens at the end, if the chemo doesn’t work. I’ve already asked this question of my oncologist, Dr. Khader. He looked serious. He must spend all day looking serious. Who the hell wants that job?
“Good news,” Dr. Khader tells me the moment I enter his consultancy room. “Your tumor markers are…” He quotes a decimal number at me that means absolutely nothing, and I tell him that. I’ve gotten so snappy. I’m snappy all the time now.
Dr. Khader smiles kindly. He’s obviously used to telling patients information they don’t understand, and being called on it. He’s ready to go into some level of detail and I listen as he tells me my markers are low—that this is good, that the chemo is doing its job, that everything is going according to plan. Then he asks how I’ve been. He always used to ask how I was first, and in the end I got so pissy because no one wants to go see an oncologist and have small talk about life, love, and everything in between and then get told how well the treatment’s working or not. So now he bursts into details, clipboard in hand, gives me the tumor-marker lowdown, explains what the hell it all means, and then I allow him the proverbial chat that I’m pretty sure he could also do without, but is obliged to have for the sake of his bedside-manner reputation.
“I’m OK,” I tell him. It’s my default answer now. I am obviously not OK. I’m weak, tired, everything hurts, I feel sick all the time, I’m angry, but I sound like a broken record and so “I’m OK,” I repeat when he looks at me, knowing I’m lying.
He nods. “Let me check you over,” he says. We go through this rigmarole too, which seems crazy. They took the testicle away and put a false one in at the same time, which sits a little strangely, so God knows what he’s looking for; but there must be boxes to check off on that clipboard, and so I lie back on the exam table, pants down, arms behind my head, while my downstairs gets more action and I’m moved around, wincing uncomfortably while he does it.
“OK?” he asks. “It hurts still—this long after surgery?”
“No, man, it’s that you’re manhandling my balls. Ball,” I correct myself with a frown. “And you didn’t even buy me dinner first.”
He laughs, but it’s polite, not real. He must have heard that one a million times.
“You can get dressed now. Everything’s as expected. Scar’shealing nicely—nothing out of the ordinary.” Other than the fact that half of me is missing, down there.
He moves away, washes his hands, and then says, “How are you? How are you really? You’re on your own today?” He glances around his office as if I might have hidden my mom behind one of his plastic chairs.
“Sure am.” I stand up, pull on my joggers, and move back to the chair.
“You got enough support through all of this?”
“I do. Mom, Dad, best friend.”
He nods, looking at me distrustfully…waiting for me to open up.
“Good,” he says finally. “Anything else on your mind? Any questions about your third cycle?” I notice he doesn’t call it my last cycle. He’s keeping that door propped wide open. Just in case.
“Yeah,” I say, leaning forward. “I do actually. What happens if I don’t do it?”
He gives me a startled look, a mix ofWhat the hell?andI’m sure I misheard you.
“What happens if you don’t do what?” he asks slowly.
“If I don’t go through with it. This last cycle.” I’m going to call it the last one. Because I can. I’ve earned it.
Dr. Khader sits back, folds his arms. “Are you asking me what will happen to you if you choose to reject the entire course of treatment? If you stop now, after your second cycle?”
“Yes.” I want to congratulate him for getting there and then I realize I am being an ass, even though I didn’t say it out loud.
I can tell he’s thinking about how to phrase his response. “It’s not really an option,” he says.
“Why not?” I am genuinely curious. “My markers are low. You said so yourself. The cancer has all but gone.”
“Yes,” he nods. “All but gone.”
As if in silent exchange, it’s his turn to wait for me to get there, but I won’t. “It really hurts,” I tell him and I can feel something close to tears at the back of my eyes. I blink them away. “It really hurts,” I repeat, quieter now. “I don’t think I can do it again. I don’twantto do it again.”
Perhaps I’ve finally asked him a question no one’s ever asked him before, because he’s watching me, blinking unbelievably slowly, and he’s not speaking.
“Do you have a counselor or a therapist?” he asks me eventually and it’s my turn to be stunned.
“No.”
“You don’t want one?”
