This is chemo
Your appointment is at 8:15. A robo caller gets in touch with you the day before to remind you that you need to be on time. That you should plan to arrive 15 minutes early for insurance purposes. You do this, although getting your wife anywhere ON TIME is a feat.
You give the receptionist your BCBS card. You are weighed. Blood pressure taken. Temperature taken. You are ushered into a little room.
You wait. You wait some more. You have now been waiting for a half hour. Forty five minutes. You are trying to be calm and read a year old People magazine with a singer on the cover. T is seething. You can feel her rage from across the room.
"This is ridiculous!" she says. "Why is it that doctors think that your time is not valuable but their time is? Five more minutes and I am going to go out and say something."
You stare at her until she looks at you. You tell her that, no, this is not how it is going to go. You are scared and you can not deal with her being angry, too. She needs to CALM THE FUCK DOWN.
She obliges, reluctantly.
After an hour, a Physician Assistant comes in. She is small with perfect makeup, her lipstick applied so expertly that it fascinates you. How does someone do that? T makes a snotty remark about the time. You give her a look but she won't meet your eyes. The PA says something to the effect that she is sorry but things got a little hectic this morning.
The PA tells you about all of your tests. It turns out that the nurse told you incorrect information on the telephone when you spoke to her last week. You do not have HER 2 Positive. It is HER 2 Negative. This is a better diagnosis. Easier to treat. T starts talking about how important it is to give correct information to patients and you take your foot and press it on hers as hard as you can. She closes her mouth.
The Pa talks about a plan of action. No, your cancer is not curable. Yes, it can be treated, maybe for a long time before it kills you. You will receive your first shot of chemo today. It is injected. NO intravenous bags. This feels like a small victory until she tells you that you will receive injected chemo because they are not trying to kill the cancer, just slow it down. You will also receive another injection to help keep your bones healthy since chemo "leaches" bones. But, you will not start this bone treatment until after your dental appointment for a cleaning in January as it is not safe to use with dental treatments. You will also be taking an oral chemo drug but not right away. This must be prepared by a specialty pharmacy and one that is approved by your insurance company. They will call you within ten days.
Later in the day, when you get home, you will look up this drug on the internet and see that it costs over 12,000$ per month if you do not have insurance. With insurance, it may cost around 400$. Your heart does a crazy dance and you think hard about people who do not have good insurance. What do THEY do? They go into debt. They lose their houses. They die. You think for the 100th time that you cannot stand Donald Trump. He lied to all those stupid believers. He was going to get them something better than Obamacare. His insurance plans are worse. They do not accept pre-existing conditions, which nearly everyone over 40 has. If you had Trump insurance, you would be in deep shit. You think about all the women in the world who have their breast cancer come back who cannot afford to fight it. It breaks your heart. All those people without commercial insurance who have had breast cancer. They are at terrible risk and probably don't even know it.
The PA leaves after handing you sheaves of paper telling you about the side effects of the medications you will now be taking. You peruse them with T while you wait for the nurse to bring the chemo shot. The side effects range from nausea and vomiting to diarrhea to constipation to rashes to extreme bone pain, but the most common is low white blood cell count and anemia, thus....extraordinary fatigue.
You remember the fatigue from your previous bouts with cancer and leukemia. Fatigue is not even the right word, really. There is no word for the tiredness you felt. How you sat on the sofa and had to pee but just the thought of heaving yourself up and on to your feet and walking into the bathroom seemed to be such a monumental task. How you slept so hard that waking up felt like being on the bottom of a swimming pool and trying so hard to get to the top.
You do not want to go there again. You will go there again. No other way through.You lean against T just for a short moment. You hate looking weak, but you are just so not ready for this. She runs her hand through your hair and you feel her stomach begin to tremble. She is crying.
No. You can't have that. You WILL NOT have the nurse come in and see you both crying. So, you pull away and hand her a tissue. You tell her, "Let's save this for the parking lot, yes?"
T nods, wipes her nose.
Two nurses come in, each caring a syringe. The nurse, her name is Dawn and she has kind eyes, but not soupy ones, tells you that they will administer the shots simultaneously. One in each side of your hip.
You pull down your pants and they plunge. It hurts. The other nurse says, "I know this hurts and I'm sorry. The chemo liquid is like Karo syrup. It is very thick and hard to get into your bone."
It really motherfucking hurts. You don't say a word. You are afraid that if you look at T, she will jump up and try to hold your hand and you don't want that.
It is over. Time to go home. As you are getting into your coat, you feel a wave of tiredness that nearly brings you to your knees.
Seriously? This fast? You kind of laugh and tell the nurse that you can't be tired already. She tells you that the chemo drug works quickly and there have been a few who have vomited before they left the facility after a shot. Do you need to use the bathroom?
No. You don't.
You get in the car with T and she goes to Starbucks on the way home and gets you an eggnog latte. Then she has to go back to teach.
You kiss her goodbye and prepare to go to your sister's house. She is ill.
You think that this is your new normal: tired. Just adjust. You remember from previous chemo treatments that the worst days were always the first three after. Then, it got easier. Until the next one.
One foot in front of the other. Face forward.
March.
You give the receptionist your BCBS card. You are weighed. Blood pressure taken. Temperature taken. You are ushered into a little room.
You wait. You wait some more. You have now been waiting for a half hour. Forty five minutes. You are trying to be calm and read a year old People magazine with a singer on the cover. T is seething. You can feel her rage from across the room.
"This is ridiculous!" she says. "Why is it that doctors think that your time is not valuable but their time is? Five more minutes and I am going to go out and say something."
You stare at her until she looks at you. You tell her that, no, this is not how it is going to go. You are scared and you can not deal with her being angry, too. She needs to CALM THE FUCK DOWN.
She obliges, reluctantly.
After an hour, a Physician Assistant comes in. She is small with perfect makeup, her lipstick applied so expertly that it fascinates you. How does someone do that? T makes a snotty remark about the time. You give her a look but she won't meet your eyes. The PA says something to the effect that she is sorry but things got a little hectic this morning.
The PA tells you about all of your tests. It turns out that the nurse told you incorrect information on the telephone when you spoke to her last week. You do not have HER 2 Positive. It is HER 2 Negative. This is a better diagnosis. Easier to treat. T starts talking about how important it is to give correct information to patients and you take your foot and press it on hers as hard as you can. She closes her mouth.
The Pa talks about a plan of action. No, your cancer is not curable. Yes, it can be treated, maybe for a long time before it kills you. You will receive your first shot of chemo today. It is injected. NO intravenous bags. This feels like a small victory until she tells you that you will receive injected chemo because they are not trying to kill the cancer, just slow it down. You will also receive another injection to help keep your bones healthy since chemo "leaches" bones. But, you will not start this bone treatment until after your dental appointment for a cleaning in January as it is not safe to use with dental treatments. You will also be taking an oral chemo drug but not right away. This must be prepared by a specialty pharmacy and one that is approved by your insurance company. They will call you within ten days.
Later in the day, when you get home, you will look up this drug on the internet and see that it costs over 12,000$ per month if you do not have insurance. With insurance, it may cost around 400$. Your heart does a crazy dance and you think hard about people who do not have good insurance. What do THEY do? They go into debt. They lose their houses. They die. You think for the 100th time that you cannot stand Donald Trump. He lied to all those stupid believers. He was going to get them something better than Obamacare. His insurance plans are worse. They do not accept pre-existing conditions, which nearly everyone over 40 has. If you had Trump insurance, you would be in deep shit. You think about all the women in the world who have their breast cancer come back who cannot afford to fight it. It breaks your heart. All those people without commercial insurance who have had breast cancer. They are at terrible risk and probably don't even know it.
The PA leaves after handing you sheaves of paper telling you about the side effects of the medications you will now be taking. You peruse them with T while you wait for the nurse to bring the chemo shot. The side effects range from nausea and vomiting to diarrhea to constipation to rashes to extreme bone pain, but the most common is low white blood cell count and anemia, thus....extraordinary fatigue.
You remember the fatigue from your previous bouts with cancer and leukemia. Fatigue is not even the right word, really. There is no word for the tiredness you felt. How you sat on the sofa and had to pee but just the thought of heaving yourself up and on to your feet and walking into the bathroom seemed to be such a monumental task. How you slept so hard that waking up felt like being on the bottom of a swimming pool and trying so hard to get to the top.
You do not want to go there again. You will go there again. No other way through.You lean against T just for a short moment. You hate looking weak, but you are just so not ready for this. She runs her hand through your hair and you feel her stomach begin to tremble. She is crying.
No. You can't have that. You WILL NOT have the nurse come in and see you both crying. So, you pull away and hand her a tissue. You tell her, "Let's save this for the parking lot, yes?"
T nods, wipes her nose.
Two nurses come in, each caring a syringe. The nurse, her name is Dawn and she has kind eyes, but not soupy ones, tells you that they will administer the shots simultaneously. One in each side of your hip.
You pull down your pants and they plunge. It hurts. The other nurse says, "I know this hurts and I'm sorry. The chemo liquid is like Karo syrup. It is very thick and hard to get into your bone."
It really motherfucking hurts. You don't say a word. You are afraid that if you look at T, she will jump up and try to hold your hand and you don't want that.
It is over. Time to go home. As you are getting into your coat, you feel a wave of tiredness that nearly brings you to your knees.
Seriously? This fast? You kind of laugh and tell the nurse that you can't be tired already. She tells you that the chemo drug works quickly and there have been a few who have vomited before they left the facility after a shot. Do you need to use the bathroom?
No. You don't.
You get in the car with T and she goes to Starbucks on the way home and gets you an eggnog latte. Then she has to go back to teach.
You kiss her goodbye and prepare to go to your sister's house. She is ill.
You think that this is your new normal: tired. Just adjust. You remember from previous chemo treatments that the worst days were always the first three after. Then, it got easier. Until the next one.
One foot in front of the other. Face forward.
March.
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