“I know it all sounds very confusing at first, but you'll get used to it,” she smiled. Alex was startled to realize they had been talking for almost an hour when the doctor led her into the next room for the examination.
Alex undressed carefully, folding her clothes on a chair, as though each moment, each gesture mattered, and she found she couldn't control her shaking. Her hands were shaking like leaves, while the doctor looked at the surgical site and nodded approval.
“Have you picked out your plastic surgeon yet?” she asked, but Alex only shook her head. She hadn't made that decision. She didn't know if she even wanted reconstructive surgery. The way things were going she wasn't sure she cared. And thinking about that brought tears to her eyes, as the doctor pricked her finger for her blood count. Suddenly, there was a catch in her throat for everything, and as the doctor set up the IV, Alex suddenly found herself sobbing and apologizing for it.
“It's all right,” the doctor said quietly, “go ahead and cry. I know how frightening this is. It won't ever be as scary as the first time. We are very, very careful with these drugs.” Alex knew that that was why it was so important to have selected an excellent and board-certified oncologist. She had heard horror stories of people who had been killed by improperly administered chemo. And she couldn't help thinking about that now. What if she had a reaction? What if she died? What if she never saw Annabelle again? Or Sam? …even after the awful fight they'd had the night before. It didn't bear thinking.
Dr. Webber began an IV infusion of dextrose and water first, and then she added the drug to it, but the IV kept backing up, and her vein collapsed just after they started. It was painful, and Dr. Webber immediately took the IV out, and looked at Alex's other arm, and then her hands, which were still shaking.
“I generally prefer the dextrose and water first but your veins aren't looking so great today. I'm going to do a ‘direct push,' and then we'll try this way again next time. I'm going to inject the undiluted medication right into your vein. It stings a little bit, but it's faster, and I think for today you'll be happier if we get this over with quickly.” Alex couldn't disagree with her, but the “direct push” sounded very scary.
Her neat small hands took Alex's hand, and she carefully examined the vein at the top of it, and then injected the medication into it, while Alex tried not to pass out from the sheer emotions. And as soon as she was finished she asked Alex to press hard on the vein for a fall five minutes, during which time she wrote out a prescription for the Cytoxan, and went to get out a single pill and a glass of water. She handed it to Alex, and watched her take it.
“Fine,” she said, satisfied. “You've now had your first dose of chemotherapy. I'd like to see you back here exactly a week from today, and I want to hear from you if you think you're having any problems. Don't be shy, don't hesitate, don't tell yourself you're being a nuisance. If anything seems unusual to you at all, or you just feel rotten, call me. We can see what we can do to help you.” She handed Alex a printed sheet of side effects that were normal, and those that weren't. “I'm on call twenty-four hours a day, and I don't mind hearing from my patients.” She smiled warmly and stood up. She was a lot smaller than Alex and she seemed very dynamic. She was lucky, Alex thought, as she looked at her, she was doing her job. It was just like the people who came to her, with terrible legal problems, and frightening lawsuits. She could take care of them, she could do her best for them. But the problem and the anguish were theirs, not hers. Suddenly, she envied the doctor.
Alex was stunned to realize as she left that she had been at the oncologist's for two hours. It was just after two o'clock, and her hand was still sore as she hailed a cab. There was a Band-Aid over where the doctor had injected the medications. Alex was beginning to learn all the terms and phrases. It was information she would have been happier not knowing, and she felt enormously relieved as she rode back to the office. She didn't feel sick, she hadn't died, nothing terrible had happened to her. At least the doctor knew what she was doing. She thought about buying a wig as they drove down Lexington Avenue. It seemed depressing to be thinking about it now. But the doctor was probably right. It would be less upsetting to have one on hand when she needed it, rather than going to stores, hiding her balding head with a scarf on. The thought of it was far from cheering.
She paid the cab and went up to her office, and Liz was away from her desk when she got in. Alex answered her calls from the messages on her desk, and she started to relax finally a little while later. The sky had not fallen in. So far, she had survived it. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all, she told herself, as Brock came in, in his shirtsleeves, with a stack of papers. It was four o'clock, and she'd been busy for the past two hours.
“How'd it go?” he asked with a look of concern. There was always something very nice about the way he asked her. It wasn't cloying and intrusive, it was just very obvious that he cared, and that touched her. He was almost like a younger brother.
“So far so good. It was scary as hell though.” She didn't know him well enough to tell him she'd cried, that she'd been to hell and back, waiting for the injection to kill her.
“You're a good kid,” he said, “do you want a cup of coffee?”
“I'd love one.”
He was back in five minutes and they worked for an hour, and she left promptly at five o'clock, so she could go home to Annabelle. It had been a pretty good day, but a tiring one, all things considered.
“Thanks for all the help,” she said to Brock before she left. They were starting a case together for a small employer who was being sued in a bogus discrimination case. This time the woman had cancer, and claimed she was passed over for a promotion. Her employer had done everything he possibly could to help her. He even had set up a room for the employee at work, so she could rest as much as she needed to, and he had given her three days a week off while she was having chemo, and held her job for her. But she was still suing. She claimed she wasn't promoted because of her cancer. What the woman wanted was to make some money, sit at home, and be able to pay for all her treatments and then some with what she made on the lawsuit. The cancer appeared to have been cured, and she didn't even want to work anymore. But she still had a lot of leftover debts from her treatments. And there was no doubt, Alex had discovered herself, that most insurance plans paid only minimum amounts for cancer treatment. If you couldn't afford the very expensive treatments that saved lives, you were in big trouble. Alex's own insurance was picking up very little of her expenses. But still, the plaintiff in her case had no right to take that out on her ex-employer. He had even offered to help her, a fact that she had later denied, and that he had no proof of. As usual, Alex felt very sorry for the defendant. She hated the injustice of people who thought they ought to clean up just because someone else had money and they didn't. And it was also a good time for her to be taking the case, because she had a lot of very useful firsthand information about cancer.
“I'll see you tomorrow, Brock,” she said as she got ready to leave.
“Take care of yourself. Bundle up. And eat a good dinner.”
“Yes, Mom,” she teased, but they were all things Liz had told her too. She had to keep warm, and make sure she kept her strength up. She wasn't looking forward to the weight Dr. Webber said she might gain. She hated being overweight, although she seldom was, and she knew Sam hated heavy women.
“Thanks again.” She left, and went home, thinking of how nice they all were, and how relieved she was that her first treatment was over. It had been even more traumatic than she'd expected, and she'd been even more undone by it, and yet it had gone pretty smoothly. She wasn't looking forward to going back in a week, but maybe it would be better this time, and after that she had a three-week break before the next one. Liz had filled her prescription for the pills, and she had them in her handbag. It was like being on the pill again, which she hadn't been in years. You couldn't allow yourself to forget them.