With difficulty I open my eyes. I moan softly. It’s hot in my bedroom. Still, chills run down my spine.
Duncan is not next to me. I prick up my ears. My family is still at home, I hear. Duncan performs the familiar morning ritual with Noah downstairs. I hear them laughing together and feel a twinge. Since I started chemotherapy I no longer participate. I’m not participating in anything anymore. I’m just lying here in bed – like a shadow of myself.
Nauseous
Chemotherapy number two was even harder for me than the first. For ten long days I wandered through a dark tunnel – sick to my stomach, sick as hell. Yesterday the worst seemed over. But today I feel worse than ever. Everything hurts. My muscles, my nails, my throat. And worst of all, I don’t make slime anymore. My mouth is dry and full of wounds. My right wisdom tooth is throbbing and banging.
“Dunc,” I shout. I have a decent voice by birth – I’m known for it by friends and family. But now I look like Rose, in the final scene of Titanic.
After what seems like an eternity, Duncan hears me. Concerned, he puts a hand on my head.
“You have a fever. Doctor K. said you should call then,” he says.
“It’s not that bad.”
I don’t want to be a poser, I don’t want to unnecessarily bother the doctors and nurses. But when I take my temperature and measure 40 degrees, I call the general number of the hospital. I am put through to a nice man – just finished his night shift – who is very relaxed.
“I’ll put your report in the system. Call back at nine o’clock just to be sure. Then the right people have arrived here.”
Reassured, I fall into a deep feverish sleep. Well after nine o’clock I wake up in a soaking wet bed. I want to sit up straight, but I can’t. I pick up my phone: fifteen missed calls. From my mother, from Duncan, from the hospital.
I call the VUmc and am immediately put through to my oncologist, doctor K.
“Finally,” she says. “You must come here now.”
get out of bed? Impossible.
“Is that necessary?” I ask sleepily.
“Yes Marith!” says doctor K. sternly.
“Especially in this week your blood values are low and a fever is dangerous. Didn’t I tell you to call the emergency number immediately if you have a fever?”
A special emergency number? I dig in my memory. And for a moment I feel like the disinterested high school student who always missed important announcements.
Nightmare
I stumble into the hospital on Duncan’s arm. We attract attention. I am ashen, can barely walk and wear a cap over my shaved head.
I would prefer to disappear.
I get my own room and to my delight Duncan – unlike during chemotherapy – can stay with me. He asks a nurse for extra blankets and tucks me in expertly. Then he sits down next to my bed with a concerned face – my hand in his.
“Then will this nightmare never end?” he mumbles.
I try to smile reassuringly, but I can’t. My parched lips stick to my teeth.
“It’s all right,” I say softly — and not very convincingly.
Duncan nods. He kisses my cheek, pressing his forehead against mine.
“As soon as your treatment is finished, we’ll go on vacation for six weeks,” he says.
“To Cape Town, or Bali. Swimming in the sea, eating everything we want…” Duncan muses on.
I close my eyes. See for me Noah, Duncan and I running down the beach. In my fantasy I have a bit of hair again – hair that stands for resurrection.
Then I think of our last, rather challenging journey.
“But Noah hates sand, hates water,” I say.
“Yes now. But not anymore.”
Yes. Fixed. We laugh.
Weak patient
My blood counts are alarmingly low and dozens of tests will follow. Hours pass. But nothing specific is found. My inflamed wisdom tooth may be the ogre. I have to go on antibiotics – a heavy course – and with that tooth to the dentist.
Doctor K. enters.
“Marith, you scared me. You have to act immediately if something is wrong. An infection is dangerous in your situation. Chemotherapy is supposed to save your life. And not that it will kill you,” she says.
I swallow. And then promise to make my life better. I have to realize that I am a weak patient – to act upon it. With a trembling finger, I save the emergency number in my phone, silently hoping I never have to use it.
Via Marith’s Instagram account @marithiedema can you follow her closely?
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