Is That All There Is?

Dr. R thinks it’s time we start seeing other people. In stereotypical bad break-up timing, he delivered this news on a Friday, just before the weekend, after making me wait an hour to see him.

No, he informed me, he didn’t want to keep that PET scan date we had been planning for a month, and he thought it best to cancel our weekly blood test rendezvous. Better just to finish up the chemotherapy and then go our separate ways for awhile.

Except for this not entirely unexpected development, the last day of chemo—June 27—was utterly uneventful. After an anxious build-up, the 8th and final treatment went so smoothly, it barely registered. I had expected to write through most of it, raging about headaches and chemo farts and the creepy way my veins feel, like they’re just going to burst and send blood spurting all over. I thought I would detail every last minute, but once I was in the chair, it was too much effort to open my laptop. Maybe I’m suffering from chemo brain after all.


Since Friday was not my regular day (treatment was pushed back a few days because I was so sick the last time around), I didn’t know any of the other people hooked up to IVs. There were two women, both of whom were sleeping, and one man, accompanied by his wife, who was getting his first treatment. The Little Infusion Room on the 13th Floor was quiet. I listened to music and chatted with my chemo date, who brought me lunch and stayed until the end, which came even sooner than expected when Kristin, the nurse, unhooked me before the last saline drip was finished, declaring “you don’t need it.” I got up, gathered my things, hugged Debbie, the nurse who usually administers my chemo, and that was it. It felt like the last day at some stupid summer job you didn’t like all that much. You met a few nice people, but other than that, the experience was entirely forgettable. (What was the name of that funny lady? You know, the one at the front desk at the place I worked that summer in Philly? Remember? The summer that sucked?)

I had one last, fleeting thought that I should wish the new guy luck and offer some words of encouragement, as someone had for me on my first day of treatment, but he was in the bathroom when I was wrapping up and if there’s one thing I’d learned in my four months of chemo it’s that you don’t wait around for that stuff. When you’re done, you get the hell out of there, which I did, without looking back, without making my usual stop at reception to schedule the next appointment with Dr. R, the erstwhile main man in my life.

Which is how I ended up, five days later, sitting in the basement of the hospital--where they keep all the scary equipment--and sizing up the proposal of Dr. X.

It is not a blind date. I had met Dr. X, the cancerologist specializing in radiation therapy, once before, about five months ago, and I liked him. He was the first one to explain what the treatment for Hodgkin’s would entail, calmly going through all the horrific details and ramifications while my head spinned. He was also the first one to use the word cancer. Isn’t that hilarious? The whole first month of this process, from discovering the lump in my neck in January through surgery and diagnosis in February, none of the experts ever used the word cancer, not even the surgeon, not even when he was referring me to oncology.

Now Dr. X and I are again face to face or, more precisely, knee to knee. Dr. X has pulled his chair up very close and is looking me directly in the eye and gently running through the list of potential side effects of radiation which include burning skin, extreme fatigue and almost certain loss of thyroid function and range in severity from sore throat to heart (why is the heart always in the balance?) and lung problems to—my personal favorite—other cancers. Breast cancer. Thyroid cancer. Leukemia. Other lymphomas.

These are my choices?

The latest scans indicate the chemo is doing its job. The parts of my body that were glowing with cancer cells aren’t glowing anymore. The radiation, Dr. X explains, is designed to ensure that all the cancer is killed, even, or, I suppose, especially, the cancer you can’t see. If I don’t get the radiation and I start glowing with Hodgkin’s again, they can still treat it (Good News!) but it’s harder: heavy doses of radiation and even heavier blasts of chemo, maybe even some other things involving phrases like bone marrow and stem cell transplant.
Dr. X is very complimentary. He compliments my scarf. (Gucci.) He tells me I look good. I roll my eyes. He asks me for the third time when I completed my last cycle of chemo. “Friday,” I tell him. “Friday, five days ago?” Yes. He looks surprised. “Most people, five days after chemo…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  So I'm the Chemo Queen. Whatever.

Dr. X wants a committed relationship. Unlike Dr. R and his casual every-other-week dates, he’ll insist on seeing me every day if we decide to get involved.

These are my choices.

A bubble bath and good book never looked so appealing.

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