The next day the term “full of disease”
ran around my head. I tried not to let it interfere with my day but it was
impossible not to worry. My stomach
started feeling rough. Was it just breakfast settling in or was it cancer
advancing? I looked sick. My weight had dropped off to about 58 kg (128
pounds). Before I went to America I weighed about 63 kg (140lbs). I hadn’t
weighed less than 130 pounds since university.
Because
bortezomib, also called velcade, was a newer drug, after my second shot the
following week, the nurse told me they were interested in any side effects. I
pulled up my shirt and showed them the brown patch at the injection site. The
patch had gone from pink to bright red before it faded to look like a café au
lait birthmark. They wanted a photo so I readied myself and sucked in my flab.
But the nurse got distracted by a more pressing matter. She forgot about the
photo, but she did return to deliver some blood results. She dropped the A4
computer sheet on the bed between me and Alex leaving us to decipher the
numbers and initials. What caught my eye was written under the words: Blood
Film. It said “thrombocytopenia is present”.
“That
looks bad.” (My yin)
“The
nurse said your blood results were good. You shouldn’t read everything.” (Alex’s
yang)
“Mmm
hmmm.”
On
the menu today was also an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). Over about twenty
minutes it would scan my body so the doctors could see my internal organs and
bones. I had to lie on a narrow bed which was inserted in and out of a tube at
a quick pace, reminiscent of the way you cleaned a flute. The technician talked
to me through headphones but I couldn’t talk back. Instead a panic button was
put in my left hand so I could alert the staff if I couldn’t take it anymore
and wanted out. Unfortunately during one of the bed’s rapid thrusts towards the
machine, the panic button was ripped out of my hand. I couldn’t sit up so I had
to feel for it on the surface of the bed. After a few grasps at the sheet I
still couldn’t find it so I was going to have to go the distance without an
exit strategy.
I
had to think of other things. The tube was extremely narrow and I wondered how
it could accommodate an obese person. It was much smaller and thinner than the
one they used on House. Maybe they had a hand-held version for those who
couldn’t fit? It was so noisy and clumsy it was like being on an old wooden
rollercoaster. I wondered if it was second-hand. The patients on House always
looked so comfortable. I wondered if I could be a radiographer. The staff
seemed to be nice and it might be fun to sit up in the booth and talk to
patients through a microphone. It was probably a practical joke that the panic
button was pressed into the patient’s hand then ripped out. They probably had a
lot of fun in this department, winking and whispering:
“There’s
another one who won’t be able to panic!”
Before the procedure I had been chilly
and requested a blanket. Twelve minutes into the procedure, with my head in the
cramped tube, I was sweating.
“Four
more minutes” came through the headphones.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to make
it. I thought about banging on the inside of the tube. Then whoosh the gurney
moved out the other end of the machine and my head was in the cool air again. I
was released, thanked the staff and rejoined Alex in the waiting room. We went
home and sat talking over a cup of coffee trying to absorb the new life we had
been handed.
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