Dog Lived (and So Will I) (23 page)

In addition to taking the steroids and other medication the night before and morning of my appointment, I’d also packed up enough work and other items to keep me busy for the day. One would not want to be bored while poison is pumped through one’s veins. As I understood it, I likely wouldn’t be sick until the next day. That meant I could still work during the infusion. The comfy recliner even had a little table at the side for my computer. The nurse approached the side of my chair and asked to see my left arm. The chemo is delivered in the arm opposite from the side the surgery was done. Right breast, left arm.

I extended my arm, moving back the soft cotton wrap.

“Oh, you’re lucky. Great veins. You didn’t need a port?” the nurse said.

“No. They didn’t even ask me about it. But yes, I’ve been told I have great veins. At my age, I guess that’s a compliment.”

Chris perked up. “Those veins bleed a lot. I’ve been told to let you know that.”

“That’s good to know, but it won’t be a problem here,” she said, rubbing alcohol on the back of my hand.

The needle easily, quickly slipped into a large vein. I winced. Not because it hurt, but because it had begun. I watched as she taped down the catheter on the backside of my hand. She hung the chemo cocktail—clear liquid in an opaque, sturdy plastic bag—from a hook at the top of the IV pole and bent down to push some buttons on the monitor attached to the pole. Chris held my right hand tightly, and I rested my left on the arm of the chair. We watched as the liquid began to seep through the tubing and made its way to my hand and into my vein.

After sitting with me for a few minutes and asking if I felt okay, if I was warm, if I was itchy or felt anything at all, the nurse left to tend to other patients.

I turned to Chris. “So here we go.” There was no turning back now.

“Well, this has got to help,” he said, pointing to the top of my IV pole.

I looked up. Attached to the pole, hanging from its neck was a Beanie Baby panda. A little lower down, but also hung from its neck, was a brown bear. Both bears were slumped and depressed. I turned back to Chris. “What the hell?”

“Look—they’re everywhere. As though this experience isn’t bad enough, they’ve attached suicidal Beanie Babies to each and every IV pole.”

I glanced around the room—there were unicorns, angels, blue bears, a dog, a lamb, and what may have once been a kitten or perhaps a raccoon before it gave up on life, all dangling from their broken necks from the tops of the IV poles.

“The person who decorates for the holidays obviously got her hands on this room, too. Is this supposed to cheer me up?”

“Look on the wall,” Chris said, pointing behind me to the cheaply framed prints of angels, dolphins, rainbows, and bears dressed as angels, wearing rainbow dresses. “I like that one in particular.” He pointed at a quilt square framed under glass. “What? In case of temperature drop, break glass?”

I laughed. Which caused most of the people in the otherwise quiet room to look my way. Several of them smiled, but only one laughed with me. She was a beautiful, dark-haired young woman, seated in one of the “normal” visitors’ chairs in front of us. She had a textbook open on her lap.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be eavesdropping; it’s kind of hard not to listen. And you guys have been cracking me up.”

“I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to interrupt your studying,” I said.

“No, it’s fine. It’s nice someone is talking.”

We learned that her name was Elizabeth and she was there supporting her mother, who was two chairs down from me on her fifth visit. Her mother didn’t like to talk during the sessions, preferring to read. Elizabeth shared a plate of chocolate, walnut, and cranberry cookies that she’d brought for the nurses and other patients.

The woman in the chair next to me declined any cookies and minutes later was vomiting into the trash can between us, a frightful reminder of what was happening in this room. To my disappointment and surprise, the oncology center had no wireless Internet connection, so there would be very little work I could get done. Instead, I read until Chris set out our lunch spread—cheese and crackers, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a pudding cup, and grape Gatorade.

“It’s like a picnic,” I said.

“Close. I figured comfort food was good, plus we needed stuff that could just sit in the bag all morning. Just pretend the Gatorade is wine and this is a park. With, you know…suicidal unicorns.”

Later, when I needed to use the restroom, the nurse pointed me in the right direction and explained that I’d need to wheel the IV pole (panda and bear, too) along with me. I made my way, pulling the pole and struggling to get the wheels headed in the same direction, my luck with IV poles no better than it usually is with grocery carts. I closed the door behind me and was immediately confronted with a sign over the toilet: “Chemotherapy Patients: Please Flush Twice.” Yeah, that about summed up what was happening to me.

By one in the afternoon most of the other patients had left, including Elizabeth and her mom, and I was just being switched to the second chemotherapy drug, Cytoxan. This was not the drug Seamus had a problem with, so I figured, however insanely, that this one would be easy.

After fifteen minutes, I was cold. I gathered the wrap around myself and asked Chris if he was cold. He wasn’t.

I sneezed. Then I sneezed again. When I sneezed a third time, two nurses were instantly at my side.

“Are you hot? Itchy? Nauseous?”

“No, I’m cold.”

“We have to watch for allergic reactions.”

“No, I think I’m just cold.”

She gave me a warmed blanket.

I wrapped myself in the blanket and slept until nearly three. Seamus hadn’t had a problem and neither would I. When I woke, it was over. The nurse was removing the needle from the back of my hand.

“So that’s it?”

“That’s it. You did great. Most side effects, if you have any, don’t start for twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Be sure to take your medications and call us if anything comes up. When you stand up, stand up slowly.”

I stood slowly, but I was steady. Chris has already packed up our things. We were the last ones to leave the infusion room. All that was left to do was pick up Seamus and wait to see how I’d react.

I awoke at three in the morning, bursting with energy. I wrote a blog post on the chemo experience, cleaned out my desk, and then read for a couple of hours. Seamus followed me into the library and stayed with me, sleeping on a pillow and blanket on the floor, until I went back to bed. We both woke again at eight, hungry. Chris made scrambled eggs and bacon, with toast (for me and Seamus), and I had two cups of coffee. The steroids were doing their job.

That wasn’t all good. When I went to the bathroom, I had the worst bout of constipation I’d ever had or even heard of. That was on the list of possible steroid side effects; I had the medication for it, but I just hadn’t taken it, because chances were just as good that the opposite problem would occur from the chemo. How was one supposed to know?

As arranged previously, Stacey came by to sit with me on side-effect watch so that Chris could spend the day interviewing Princeton hopefuls as he’d volunteered to do for the Alumni Association many months before. He was going to cancel it, but I encouraged him to go. I had finally had the discussion with him about how unfair I felt it was that he had to be going through something like this at his age. He dismissed it with a response that it was even more unfair that I was going through it. Still though, I wanted to minimize, in any little way I could, the effect of all of this on him. In that way, I was like his mother had been when she had cancer.

I was awake when Stacey arrived, and although I hadn’t bothered to do my hair and makeup, I didn’t look sick. By the relieved look on Stacey’s face when I answered the door, I knew she was expecting much worse.

“This must be confusing for you,” I said.

“How so?”

“Well, if I looked really well put together, you would have thought I was doing awful, based on your theory. But if I looked really awful…under these circumstances wouldn’t you have also thought I was doing terribly and you’d have your hands full for the day?”

“Ah. Yes. So I’m thankful you just look somewhere in between. You feel okay?”

“I feel surprisingly well.”

We spent a few hours sitting on my bed watching old television shows and getting caught up with each other. The day reminded me of being a teenager again when one had time to while away the day with television and a good friend. Except for the part where we were anticipating the effects of poison on my innards.

The doorbell rang, and Seamus ran, howling violently, slipped out his doggie door, and flung himself at the gate.

“Poor FedEx guy. He looks scared to death,” Stacey said as she brought the package upstairs to me.

“Yeah, I get that Seamus is loud and looks a bit crazed, but I never get ‘fear of a beagle,’ especially on the other side of an iron gate. He’s only hoping for another cookie delivery.”

“The love of a mother blinds you.” She handed me the package.

Inside were the wigs Chris and I had picked out together and ordered online. Not the one I’d bought from Diedre, but a few cheaper versions. We’d had so much fun trying on different styles and colors that I ordered extras.

I pulled out a long, layered, jet-black style.

“Oooh, very Natasha-esque,” Stacey said.

“True. And obviously this one will henceforth be called Natasha.” I set Natasha down and pulled out a blond bob. I put it on and turned to Stacey.

“Sienna.”

“As in Miller?”

“As in Miller. Let me have that one.” She took it off my head and plopped it onto her own.

I laughed. “I’m sorry, but you don’t look a thing like Sienna Miller.”

“No?” Stacey got off the bed and walked to my bathroom mirror. I heard her howling laughter echo off the tiles. “I look like a crack whore! Or a washed-up stripper!”

“Then this one we shall call ‘Sienna Chablis’—she’s quite versatile.”

I tried on the next wig, a thick, strawberry-blond, shoulder-length style. I’d always wanted thick hair.

“Kind of ’70s housewife,” Stacey said.

“Yeah? Okay. I don’t know why, but I’m calling her ‘Connie.’”

“I don’t know why either, but that works. And now, I want to be a blond.” She pulled the last of the wigs out. It was a long, blond, stick-straight style—exactly like my hair had been in high school. She put it on, over her short, dark hair. “I expect to instantly have more fun.”

Stacey was not meant to be a blond. I laughed again.

“Fine,” she said, removing the wig and handing it to me. I tried it on, and she immediately dubbed it “Britney-Bitch.” I thought that worked nicely. When Chris came home, he joined in our fun. When he put on Sienna Chablis and looked so much like some English band member from the ’80s we considered renaming the wig “Nigel,” I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

I figured that was a pretty good first day of chemo. The only pain I had came from laughter. I can handle this.

I held that thought for the next several days, encouraged by my steroid energy boost and a huge appetite.

Soon, though, my energy waned.

By midafternoon in my office on Tuesday I needed a nap. I closed my office door, unfolded the futon I’d brought, and napped for a half hour. The short nap allowed me to work straight through until six that evening. On Wednesday, I did the same but only made it until five. Still, I felt better than I’d expected.

Emboldened, I talked to Chris about a weekend trip to Phoenix. Seamus and I wanted to go to Beaglefest. Chris questioned the sensibility of this.

I called my oncologist. I was once again passed over to the nurse practitioner, but I minded less when she gave me approval to go. I was thrilled.

“Are you sure?” Chris said.

“Yes. It will be so much better than sitting around the house. If I get tired, we can just go back to the hotel.”

“She said it’s okay for you to be around all of those dogs?”

“Yes. Especially since it’s outside. But she said I should stay away from anybody who is visibly sick or coughing or anything like that.”

“I don’t know. It seems a little crazy to drive for five hours with a dog in the car to spend a day with hundreds of other dogs, only to turn around and drive back the next day, all while you’re all chemo’d up.”

It did sound a little crazy, but that’s exactly what we did.

The drive from our home to Phoenix is almost entirely desert and thus peaceful. We stopped every hour or so for food or water and to let Seamus stretch and walk and sniff. In six hours we arrived at the one hotel near Beaglefest that allowed dogs.

The hotel clerk gave us a room on the first floor with “easy access to the grass area”—which turned out to be a six-foot by three-foot strip of grass next to the stairwell, which was also in front of our room.

I napped before we went to dinner, and by then the temperatures had cooled significantly and the wind was strong.

Because we had Seamus with us, our only option was eating outside on the restaurant patio. The servers and bussers took turns coming by and petting Seamus, bringing him first a bowl of water, then some bread, and finally a large bone from the kitchen. Other diners coming and going from the warmth of indoors also stopped and petted Seamus, who sat quietly, looking adorable. Chris and I sat shivering at the table, while Seamus collected his due.

Back at the hotel, things did not improve. Seamus barked each time headlights flashed into our room and again when two teenagers chose to hang out in the stairwell talking. Just as we’d drift off to sleep, lights would flash and the beagle would howl. We only got uninterrupted sleep after three in the morning. When we awoke, I walked across the parking lot to get a large cup of French roast coffee and bagels for all three of us. We were an hour and a half late to the event.

Beaglefest is, as it sounds, a celebration of beagles. There are hundreds of hounds there, baying, jumping, howling, and being beagle-y. We missed the howling contest but did see the very unsuccessful “best trick” contest, which made us feel much better that we weren’t the only ones who couldn’t train a beagle. At least we were smart enough not to enter Seamus in the contest. The “best kiss” contest also seemed to be a bust, since it would seem that most beagles, like Seamus, are not face-lickers. (Someone should have thought to put bacon grease on their face.) I noticed the organizers weren’t silly enough to stage an eating contest for the beagles.

The day was windy, and my eyes watered, and I tired earlier than I normally would have, but I was blissful. The entire day had nothing to do with cancer. I was just a girl on a date with her boyfriend and her beagle. Just like hundreds of others that day. Seamus and I both slept for most of the drive home, so it’s possible Chris was not as thrilled with the trip, but he didn’t complain.

The next day I woke when my alarm clock went off at 6:30. Seamus and I both went downstairs. I gave him his breakfast and made my toast and coffee. We returned upstairs, and I sipped my coffee while checking emails, just like any other morning.

By 7:15 I began to feel fatigued and unusually warm. I took my temperature. 99.5. Chris was in the shower then, so I didn’t say anything to him. I took Tylenol and lay down. After twenty minutes, I felt better.

I went back to my computer to email work that I’d be late. My hands shook on the keyboard. I felt a rush of heat. And then I was cold. And then it wasn’t just my hands shaking.

I walked slowly back to the bedroom and again took my temperature. 102.

We’d been given instructions repeatedly that if my temperature passed 101.5, we were to immediately phone the doctor. I got in bed, holding the covers as tightly around me as I could, while calling my oncologist. Only she wasn’t there. I received assurances someone would get back to me.

Fifteen minutes later my temperature was at 103. I was too weak and shaky to make another phone call. Chris called and received the same assurances that someone would return the call, along with instructions to have me rest and take Tylenol to reduce my fever.

The Tylenol worked to reduce my fever enough so that I could sleep, but I slept fitfully, wrapped in several blankets and still shaking. I didn’t have the energy to sit up, to eat, or to drink water. Chris brought me a damp cloth and placed it on my forehead. I can’t remember the last time that was done for me. He sat on the bed with me, watching me and checking my temperature every so often. He called my office to let them know I wouldn’t be in.

In the early afternoon, my temperature hit 104 and still the doctor’s office had not called back. Despite my temperature, I was unable to get warm. The only movement I could manage was the uncontrollable shaking.

My temperature hit 105, and I slipped in and out of consciousness. I was vaguely aware of Chris screaming on the phone to my oncologist’s office just as I was vaguely aware that I was likely experiencing the same white blood cell crash that Seamus had endured. But like Seamus, who couldn’t follow me downstairs for toast that fateful morning, I couldn’t follow the thread of Chris’s conversation. I just wanted to sleep. I was beyond fatigue. My body was shutting down.

Chris grabbed me, pulled me out of bed, wrapped me in a heavy blanket, and rushed me to the car. Seamus was left behind, howling at the gate. We had no choice. I didn’t even have the capacity to make a choice. I curled up in the front seat of the car with the blanket wrapped tightly around me.

I can recall getting in the car, but I cannot recall the drive. Likewise, I remember getting out of the car, dragging my blanket, Linus-like, with me and entering the waiting room. Chris had to fill me in on the rest later.

“You know how at the emergency room or urgent care or even a doctor’s office waiting room there is always that one really sick person, coughing, hacking, pale, shaking, or vomiting? And everyone moves away from that person? You were that person. Only there was nowhere for people to move. Every single chair was taken. I actually had to ask someone to let you sit down.”

“You’d think they’d triage better,” I said.

“Believe me, I tried. I was up in the receptionist’s face every few minutes reminding her you had cancer and were in chemotherapy. She continued to insist it was first come, first served and if I needed more, we’d have to go to urgent care.”

“I still can’t believe they sent us to a lab to get my blood drawn instead of the emergency room.”

“Twice. We had to have two different blood tests, and the second one couldn’t be done until twenty minutes after the first.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Do you remember sitting in the car in the parking lot?”

“Kind of.” I remembered wanting to sleep. I remembered being cold and extremely exhausted, in an unable-to-keep-my-head-up way.

“That was between blood tests. You kept saying you were freezing, and the waiting room was cold, so I took you out to the car and turned the heater on.”

“Weird to be so cold with a 105 fever.”

“Yes, well, that apparently happens when you get down to your last six white blood cells.”

“Like Seamus.”

“What?”

“That’s what happened to Seamus. He wasn’t shaking, but he was pretty out of it. Shaking would have freaked me out even more.”

“Believe me, I was freaked out. I wasn’t there when it happened to Seamus, but if it was even half as frightening as this was, it was horrible.”

“It was. It definitely was. Thank you for taking care of me.”

“You and this dog—I can’t believe you had the same white blood cell crash. I really could have done without that part.” He was petting Seamus in bed next to me when he said this.

“I know, baby. I know.” I petted Seamus, too. Seamus and I both received Cytoxan chemotherapy, but that wasn’t what had caused his white blood cell crash. I had foolishly assumed it wouldn’t cause mine.

We didn’t notice the flashing red light on our answering machine until the next morning. The neighbors on each side of us had called, complaining of Seamus’s howling at the gate. I told Chris I would at least handle that much. I’d email the neighbors, explain what happened, and ask for their patience and understanding. I wasn’t convinced I’d get it, but I didn’t want Chris to have to deal with angry neighbors, too.