All Dolled Up!

Charlie’s POV

If there was one thing that I hadn’t been prepared for while being admitted for treatment, it was the boredom.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want things to get exciting or anything - because something being ‘exciting’ in a hospital was almost always terrible for the patient. It’s just that in-between treatments, there was so much sitting, and doing nothing, and waiting for test results - that I just wished that I had something to do to while away the time.

I couldn’t speak with Charlotte for long as I had mostly reverted back to a daytime sleep schedule, and she was ‘asleep’ during these times. I hadn’t had the foresight to bring that book with me either, which I was kicking myself mentally for having forgotten about.

However, the tedium of that day was quickly interrupted as I had visitors.

“How’re you doing?” my father asked as he walked in. He was accompanied by Suzy and my mother. My mother had clearly been crying on the way over here, and Suzy had likely not joined her just because she knew that if she started crying, my father wouldn’t be able to hold back his tears either.

I gave him a wide smile. “I’m doing - well I can’t say great, but okay.”

“You still have your hair,” Suzy said. “Doesn’t it fall out?” My mother smacked her on the back of the head after she said that. “Ow! What - I was just asking something-”

“For heaven’s sake, don’t you have the slightest bit of awareness on how to read the room? You’re not twelve anymore, Suzy, we expect you to have a bit more tact than that. Is that the kind of question you ask someone?” my mother said furiously.

Based on the very satisfying smack! I had heard when my mother hit her, and the fact that my sister seemed to be in actual pain, this wasn’t just a playful tap, but an actual bonk on the head. This did widen my grin by quite a bit, after all, I felt that my sister could’ve used a few more of those back when she was younger - certainly during her teenage years. However, I also felt the need to speak up on her behalf.

“It’s alright Mom, I get it, but the thing is that my hair hasn’t fallen out… well, not yet. Not everyone’s hair falls out, and it usually happens a few days in,” I explained.

“So,” my dad asked, not sure what to make of my mother and sister arguing, “I’m sorry but I didn't really understand what you were diagnosed with? Like, what stage of leukemia do you have- one, two, or…” he trailed off, understanding that any stage three and above had a terrible prognosis.

“You really can’t stage leukemia like that,” I told him. “Because the cancer cells are in the blood, they’re basically able to go everywhere and to any organ system. So you can’t really stage it like you would something else based on how it’s spread - though it’s in some of my lymph nodes, in my stomach, in my spleen, though thankfully nothing in my brain. So I guess that that’s a silver lining.”

“Oh,” he said. “So, what’s the current plan right now for treatment?”

“So, they’re going to wipe my marrow clean,” I told him. “I was pretty sick two days back and couldn’t hold anything down, but I’m still on one of those drugs. My counts are falling, and once they’re completely gone, they’re going to be monitoring me for a while before I can go home and get the rest of this done outpatient.”

“If they kill off all your marrow, isn’t that like… bad?” Suzy said, unable to articulate what she was likely wanting to actually ask. I could’ve used this opportunity to make a jab at her - that maybe she would know more if she hadn’t asked me to do most of her high school biology homework for her under the pretense of ‘helping’ her with it, but even with the prank that she had recently pulled on Charlotte and I, that seemed to be a bit too malicious. Not to mention I had a feeling that my parents didn’t really know anything better either and would’ve benefitted from an explanation.

“Yeah,” I said. “My platelets are going to drop, though I haven’t noticed any bruising yet. My white cells, even the normal ones, will be gone, so I’m at risk of getting certain infections, so they’ll have me on antibiotics to prevent that. And if my red blood count falls too low, they might have to transfuse me. That’s why they’re keeping me for so long.”

“What’s that?” my mother asked, pointing to something near my chest sticking out of my gown.

“It’s a Hickman line,” I told her. “It’s a big IV line that goes into a big vein here in my chest, um, this way they can keep giving me chemotherapy and whatever else I need without having to poke me every three days to get an IV line in me. Plus, the best part of having it is that they can get blood draws from it, which I’ll tell you is great. I was getting poked in my elbows every single day, so having that out of the way is great.”

“So, they’re going to keep that in?” my father asked.

“Yeah, it’s not too much of an issue, I’ll have it on discharge so that they can use it if I need something outpatient, you know, like a transfusion,” I explained. He didn’t seem to be very convinced that it was all going to be okay. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve seen a lot of people with these before, I even told them that they could give me a kit at home and I could clean it myself. I mean, otherwise I’d have to drop by to have another nurse do it, but c’mon, I can do it myself, right?”

My attempt to lighten the mood didn’t really accomplish much.

“Did it hurt when they put that in?” Suzy asked

“Eh, a bit, but they did give some local anesthetic,” I told her. “So it wasn’t too bad.”

“So, what are your counts today?” my mother asked.

“Going down, but my white count isn’t completely gone yet, but they’ll expect that to happen in a few days,” I said. “Once that’s done, that’s kind of like ‘phase one’ of the treatment, and then they want to see my count go up a tiny bit, enough so that it’s safe to discharge me, and then the rest of everything’s going to be outpatient.”

“Okay,” my father said.

“If you guys want to wait, in about two hours the doctors should swing by, and you can speak with them yourselves,” I told them.

“Yeah, we’re not going anywhere for a while,” my father said.

“You know, you all don’t really need to really inconvenience yourselves or anything for me,” I said.

“What on earth are you talking about now?!” my mother nearly shouted. I put a finger to my lip and then pointed on the other side of the curtain, there was another patient on that bed, and they were probably sleeping.

“Shh, there’s someone else here too, but what I mean to say is that this whole thing is going to take months to be done with,” I told them. “And it’s not like I’m completely incapable of handling it, I’m okay for now, and I’m glad you guys are visiting, but it’s going to be a long haul and if I need help I’ll ask for it. I’m saying you don’t have to stay all too long if you have anything else going on, I know that Suzy might with her job, and that I’m fine. I’m not asking you guys to leave or anything, just saying that you don’t need to feel obligated to stay.”

“Oh, I have nothing going on today,” Suzy said. Today was a working day, so I couldn’t see how that was possible - but whatever. Maybe she had taken a holiday just for today, or had a very understanding boss?

There was uncomfortable silence after that. I had been hoping to cheer everyone up a little, but it seemed I had accomplished the exact opposite.

Maybe I should try a different tactic?

“Oh, sorry about this,” I said. “I’ll probably be discharged before Christmas, fingers crossed, assuming that nothing goes terribly wrong, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it anyway. I’d want to be near the hospital just in case something happens, and going across to another state is kind of-”

“-oh don’t worry about that,” my father said, and I relaxed. That is, until he finished what he was saying. “I mean, I think we should have Christmas at your place this year. It only makes sense - there’s no need for everyone to come by our place.” My mother nodded at those words.

Ah, I had dug myself into a trap! Normally we always dropped by our parent’s for the holiday’s as, before, when Suzy and I were in college, we were not living in places that could host the entire family. Though, now that such was no longer the case, it did raise the question as to why we couldn’t change the venue.