By The Way Chapter 1
mlogan6969@hotmail.com
You know what this kind of story's about. If you didn't have an inkling, you wouldn't be here in the first place, now would you.
If you're interested I have a couple of other stories here. One is under Beginnings called "Married Neighbors" (12/5/98) and the other one is "The Reunion Show" which is in the heading of Adult Friends (8/10/05). This will be my second attempt at a story and I hope that you'll like it. I'm always open to questions, comments, criticisms and advertisements as long as they ain't nasty.
"Paul, the biopsy of the lymph node that was removed from your neck shows us that you have Hodgkin's disease, and it's malignant so we'll have to perform some more tests on you."
Bam! It was just that simple to him. My fingers were laced together and I was holding them in front of my nose while I listened to Dr. Kahn explain what we'd have to do next. Actually, I wasn't listening to him, I was hearing him speak at this point. My parents were sitting on either side of me and I didn't look over to see their reaction, but I noticed that Dad started writing stuff down in his notebook that he always kept with him. I was stunned. At least, I think I was stunned. The term "malignant" stood out in my mind. I blinked a couple of times and refocused on Dr. Kahn.
"...have to see if the disease has spread, and we do this by performing a bone marrow aspiration."
"When will he have that test, doctor," my dad asked.
"We'll have to do that here, and we can do it now."
Malignant.
I was nineteen years old. Doesn't malignant mean death? Usually? As I always do whenever I hear major news I showed absolutely no reaction.
"We'll give you a shot of valium to calm your nerves before we begin the procedure. It's not the most comfortable procedure but it's pretty common."
"What do you have to do?" I asked finally.
"We insert a needle into your hip bones, each side, and aspirate, or remove, some of the bone marrow to see if the disease has spread to your skeletal system."
I just took a deep breath. Nineteen years old and I had cancer. Shit! Fuckin' cancer!
"We've identified an abnormal growth in your abdomen that leads us to believe..." Us? Who the fuck's "us"? "that disease has spread into your torso, which is why we want to perform the aspiration. Once we determine how far the disease has spread we'll know exactly how to fight it."
"How do we fight it," from me.
"Well, at stage one, which would have been your neck only, we would have treated you with radiation in order to combat the cancer cells. But the growth in your abdomen tells us that it's spread and we can't radiate your entire body, so we'll have to treat it with chemotherapy."
Great. So now my fuckin' hair will fall out. I weighed about 125, wet, and was (well, I still am) five feet eleven inches tall. You do the math. I looked like a bean pole Hell, the only think I liked about myself, physically, was my hair. I'm gay so what do you expect. My dad's mom and my mom's dad both had very wavy and thick hair and I had inherited that gene. From somewhere in my d.n.a. structure I also had the metabolism of a diesel train. I ate a lot and constantly, yet still remained skinny. I had absolutely no body fat which is great if you wanna look like a heroin waif.
"Okay," I said.
"We'll have to establish a sperm bank for you because there's a possibility that the chemotherapy will make you sterile."
"Damn," I said. "That doesn't really matter, doc, I ain't gonna have any kids any way."
"Well, you're young, Paul, you never can tell these things now."
"Yeah I can. I'm gay," I laughed. Yes, I actually laughed a bit. I always have this absurd tendency towards inappropriate humor.
"Ah," Dr. Kahn said with a single nod. "Well, unless you all have any questions, Paul we can go ahead and get this first test out of the way."
My parents and I stood up. Dr. Kahn followed us out of his office as a nurse escorted me to a small procedure room.
One nurse was a youngish black woman, probably in her thirties, and the other one was a bit older, white, and in her forties.
"Here ya go, hon, put this gown on and remove your shorts and shirt," the black nurse, Shirley, said to me.
I was still weirded out. Malignant. But I'm only nineteen.
I got changed and Shirley came back in to give me my shot of valium. I don't remember it calming me down at all. Fuckin' valium. How do people get hooked on that? I must have been too anxious from the idea of having cancer. Fuck! Why me? I didn't really have any time to emote. About fifteen minutes later Dr. Kahn came in followed by the older nurse.
"Paul, if you'll just lay on your side."
I lay over on my right side and pulled my knees into the fetal position, at their request.
"You'll feel a prick as the zylocane goes into your hip."
Great. Fuckin' play by play.
"Is there any particular reason you don't put me out completely?" I asked.
"It's a very quick procedure and frankly, we just normally perform it while the patient's awake. Here we go..."
Ever have a needle stuck into the skin at your hips, just below your back? Me neither. Not fun. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted in my head until the pain went away.
"Now another shot..."
I held my hand out and Shirley took it. Thank God for Shirley, I thought. I felt the doctor pressing around the skin on my hips.
"Can you feel that?"
"Just pressure," I said.
"Okay, you'll feel a bit of a pinprick. Once we get inside the bone cavity we have to turn the needle in order to aspirate the bone marrow."
"Just do it," I said curtly.
The next thing I knew I felt so much discomfort that I almost went through the wall! I felt him pushing the needle or whatever it was into my hip bones. Fuckin' fuck! That hurt!
"Pinprick! Feels like a friggin' spike!" I said.
"Just hang in there, Paul, I'll be in and out before you know it."
Oh, Christ on a bike, this hurt. I could feel every move he was making. No it wasn't extremely painful but shit...I can't explain it. It was the most uncomfortable feeling I'd ever experienced. I wouldn't wish that on my worst friggin' enemy.
Then he turned the needle. I squeezed Shirley's hand really hard. Too hard. She howled out a little bit and I let up. "Sorry," I said through clenched teeth.
"One down," the doctor said.
"Damn, give me a minute doc." I can't believe I had to go through that twice! After a few minutes Dr. Kahn returned to torture me some more. What a saint. He started working on the second hip and DAMN! With the hand that wasn't holding Shirley's I drove forward, punching the wall. Finally after what seemed an eternity Dr. Kahn finished the procedure. Slowly I sat up and put my shorts back on. We were to hear from the doctor in a few days with the lab results.
I think the valium finally started to work on me because I was feeling a little loopy and had a lump in my throat.
My God. Cancer.
The three of us got into the car and Dad drove us home. The whole way Mom was babbling about her nonsense, I'm sure trying to be strong for my sake. I just stared out the window as I teetered on the edge of the great chasm we know as sanity. Or depression. Fuck, I don't know. I watched cars and buildings go by but I really didn't pay any attention. I had always sympathized whenever I heard of people getting cancer. Now I was one of those people.
All the way home I stared out the car window and breathed shallowly. I tuned my parents out, almost completely.
When we got home my mom tried to explain what cancer was and how it was basically cells that multiply at a greater rate than homeostasis...whatever. I just nodded.
"I need to call Glen," I said simply. I think my parents were hurt that I wouldn't talk to them but I needed him. I picked up the phone and dialed his number. Thankfully he was at home and answered.
"Hello?"
"Hey man, it's me."
"Hey, what's goin' on?" he asked.
"Um. Can you come over here and get me? I can't drive and I need to talk."
"I'm on my way." He hung up. It was as simple as that. All I had to do was to call him and ask for him; I knew he'd be there for me. This was back in '89 before the mass production of cell phones, so if he wasn't at home or at work, I'd'a had no way of getting in touch with him.
I went outside and sat on the front porch glider, waiting for Glen to drive up. As I sat there I started thinking over the past few years of my life and how different I'd become.
So this is how I'm starting this story.
mlogan6969@hotmail.com