“I’m the one who’s damaged goods here,” I snapped. This came out harsher than I meant it, and my mother looked as if she might cry. My father’s eyes stayed focused on the squid, the conversation having long departed his comfort zone.
Turning to me, Will said, “I could be your sperm donor. I know how much this means to you, but, of course, it’s up to you.”
In this moment, I loved him more deeply than I knew it possible to love anyone. I loved that he had shown up for me during the worst week of my life. I loved that he’d immediately gotten along with my parents and was always finding ways to make us all laugh, despite the awful circumstances in which we’d come together. And I loved that he was willing to delve into the difficult subjects—of eggs and sperm and embryos, of my future children, maybe even our future children, and how they could be brought into the world. I loved, too, that he was man enough to talk about all this in front of my father, rather than fleeing for the nearest exit.
* * *
—
Inside the fertility clinic, the walls were bare except for a sign that said: No Children Allowed. Several women, some alone, others with partners, sat in plush chairs, waiting for the lady in the lab coat to call the next name. I guessed that most of the women were paying full price to be here. Fertility preservation treatments could cost upward of twenty-five thousand dollars and were often not covered by insurance. In my case, my medical team had helped me secure a grant through an organization called Fertile Hope to cover the bill.
In most doctors’ offices, it is hard to know why the stranger next to you is there, but everyone was here for the same reason. The room was tense. No one was talking, but everybody seemed to be sizing one another up. Most of the women appeared to be in their mid-thirties, and a few might have been in their forties. Based on how they were dressed, I guessed they had jobs to return to after their appointments. As I sat there, with my parents and boyfriend, wearing my college hoodie emblazoned with Class of 2010, I felt profoundly out of place.
A nurse called me into the exam room. She drew my blood to test my estrogen levels, then gave me a cup of apple juice to sip. Then I stripped off my clothes and dressed in a cotton gown. I lay on the table, the tissue paper crinkling beneath me as I nestled my feet into the metal stirrups. The fertility doctor, a man with dyed black hair, placed a large rubbery condom onto a transvaginal ultrasound wand. I cringed as I heard the squish of lube being squeezed onto the end of the knob and shut my eyes as it nosed its way in between my legs. The doctor switched on the monitor, searching my ovaries until my follicles, the fluid-filled sacs where the eggs mature, appeared, resembling a honeycomb. “Congratulations, it looks like you’re ripe for harvesting,” the doctor said, nodding at the screen. “Have you decided if you want to create embryos or to freeze only your eggs?”
“As of right now, I’m thinking embryos,” I said. “My boyfriend, Will, has offered to be my sperm donor.”
“I see,” the doctor replied evenly. “In that case I think it would be a good idea for the two of you to meet with the social worker before you leave so that you can fill out the necessary paperwork.”
My eggs, or “totsicles” as Will and I had started to refer to them, would be surgically removed the next day. I would undergo anesthesia, and the procedure, which the doctor assured me should be quick and mostly painless, would last no more than half an hour. The eggs would then be fertilized with sperm in a petri dish to form embryos and stored in a cryobank.
A few minutes later, the social worker summoned Will and me into her office. She cautioned us strongly against the embryos, citing the unforeseeable legal and emotional obstacles that could arise down the road: How could we plan to have a child when we had only recently started dating? What if we broke up? And what would happen if I didn’t survive—who would own the embryos then? As I tried to formulate a counterargument, I came up empty. Will sat silently, his head bent low, staring at his shoes. I had put off the decision for as long as I could. Now the fertility doctor was back, waiting for my answer, but I was swarmed by questions of my own: How could I possibly make such a choice in such a short amount of time? How could I choose between the hope I had for our future together and the undeniable fact that nothing was guaranteed? Between the headiness of new love and the chilly stringency of logic? The seconds ticked by, and finally, I had to give an answer. With more than a little reluctance, I told the doctor to freeze only my eggs.
The timing of all this, like everything else in recent days, felt hopelessly out of sequence. But this was my new reality. As far as I knew, the women in the waiting room didn’t have cancer, but I was linked to them. My breasts, like theirs, were tender and swollen from the hormone injections. Our bodies were sending us signals to get ready for pregnancy even though none of us could be certain it would happen. Although I wasn’t planning for a baby anytime soon, preserving my ability to have one felt like my only lifeline to an uncertain future.
9
BUBBLE GIRL
IT WAS A perfect spring morning on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the sky a crisp, vivid blue. We parked the minivan and walked the ten blocks to Mount Sinai Hospital, passing the parade of uniformed doormen along Fifth Avenue. I noticed the clouds floating flimsily overhead like tissue paper. I noticed Central Park, bursting with color, the luscious greens of young leaves sprouting from trees, the fuchsia spray of azalea bushes, the pale yellow tulips shooting up from the earth. I opened my eyes wider, trying to take it all in, to memorize the feel of the sun on my hair, the way the spring air breezed the nape of my neck.
When we reached the steps at the hospital’s main entrance, my parents stopped to give me a silver necklace with a turquoise charm. “For each new milestone you reach in your treatment, I’ll give you another charm,” my mother said, her mouth smiling but her eyes frosting over with a sadness I hadn’t seen before. Will, too, had a gift, and he handed me a purple Moleskine notebook. Inside, under “In case of loss please return to:” he had written my childhood nickname “Susu” and “$1,000,000 reward if returned to the owner.” As we opened the glass doors and stepped inside, I took one last gulp of fresh air, bottling it in my lungs for as long as I could, knowing it would be a long time before I would be allowed outside again.
I was escorted upstairs to the oncology ward and put into a drab room with stark white walls and two hospital beds. Both were empty, so I chose the one closest to the window. I hung up my favorite summer dress in the closet like an athlete retiring a jersey and changed into a backless hospital gown. An electronic bracelet was strapped to my right wrist, a precaution against patients who, drugged to the gills on painkillers or lost in a fog of dementia, sometimes tried to wander out of the hospital. I signed so many forms I lost count, including one that designated my mother as my healthcare proxy. I also filled out an advance directive. Then, I was wheeled off to surgery, where they implanted a catheter in my chest, creating a central line through which chemo and intravenous fluids would be administered.
When I woke up in the surgical recovery room, I looked down at my bloodied chest. Protruding from a wound below my collarbone, I saw a plastic tube with three dangling lumens, like the tentacles of some abhorrent sea creature. The sight of my altered body shocked me. I leaned over the handrails of the gurney and vomited. Up until this moment, with the exception of the mouth sores, my illness had been largely invisible. On some level, I was starting to realize that the life I’d had before was shattered—the person I’d been, buried. I would never be the same. Even my name had been changed, if only inadvertently. As I was wheeled back to the oncology ward I noticed that the sign outside my hospital room read S. Jaquad—with a q where the o should be. I was crossing over into a new land. And with every step I was feeling less like Suleika.
Two nurses entered my room carrying IV bags of antinausea medications and chemo that would drip through my veins for the next week. The younger nurse introduced he
rself as Younique. She looked to be about my age, and her hair, jet-black and hot-combed, was tied back into a serviceable knot. I eyed her with the skeptical air of someone who is about to allow herself to be poisoned by a perfect stranger. “Watch out for that little guy,” Younique warned, pointing to the smaller of the two bags. It contained one of the chemo drugs and was the color of fruit punch. “Some call it the Red Devil because its side effects can be gnarly. Anything you need, just ring the call button.”
Will and my parents sat on folding chairs, watching me until the sun went from hot white to a dusky orange outside the window. I filled the silences with dumb jokes and a steady stream of mindless chitchat. I’d brought my slippers and my favorite stuffed animal from home, as well as a stack of books that I intended to work my way through during my time in the hospital. “I feel like I just moved into a dorm room on the first day of college,” I said enthusiastically, picking up Tolstoy’s War and Peace and flipping the pages. “I’ll be able to catch up on reading. Maybe I can even get some writing done while I’m here.”
I meant what I said—I did want to charge forward, to try to accomplish something. I’d been operating on a bizarre high since my diagnosis, adrenaline and fear charging my body, a desperate optimism coursing through my arteries. The deadly disease tearing through my blood and marrow, the spartan sadness of this hospital room, the terrifying side effects of the chemo that lay ahead—I was certain none of it would break me. If anything, this experience would make me stronger. Who knew? I might even become one of those former cancer patients who go on to start a research foundation or to run ultramarathons. But mostly I wanted to ease the worry clouding my parents’ and Will’s faces—to convince them I was going to be okay. They smiled weakly at me, murmuring words of encouragement, as I blabbered on.
Eventually the sky darkened. “Go home and get some rest,” I told my parents and Will, who were staying at our family friend’s apartment a few blocks away. They looked exhausted but didn’t budge. Only when I insisted did they stand up to leave. “Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own?” my mom asked, lingering by the door. “I’m great,” I said cheerfully, waving them off.
It was only after they left that the brave face I’d been wearing all day began to crumple and fold.
* * *
—
Oncology wards, more than maybe anywhere on earth, are musicless places. Instead of flowing melody, there’s incessant beeping. During the day, the halls clamor with a constant medical call-and-response loop: nurses hollering to one another; patients calling, sometimes screaming, for morphine; nurses scrambling to find doctors; visitors searching frantically for nurses. But in some ways, those noises—however annoying—are a welcome distraction, a reminder that the hospital “machine” is in healthy operation. It is the quiet hours after dark, the hollow sounds of silent suffering, that are most frightening.
Younique had given me an Ambien before bed. Within minutes I fell into a heavy slumber, dragged into a hole darker than night as I dreamed of all the patients before me who had shared my same hospital pillow, their gaunt faces flashing through my sleep. Groggy and disoriented, I woke up around 2:00 a.m., the sound of whimpering rousing me from my nightmares. At first, I thought I might be hallucinating, but when I turned on the light, I discovered I had a roommate, a woman in her seventies who had arrived in the night. Her eyes were squeezed shut, mouth twisted in agony, as she panted short and fast through cracked lips. She moaned, tossing and turning in a drugged stupor. The presence of this stranger, submerged in her pain, gave me a glimpse of what lay ahead. I clicked off the light and pulled the gauzy green curtain between our beds shut, not wanting to see any more. I closed my eyes, trying to summon the strength and optimism I’d felt earlier in the day. Instead I found only terror.
As quietly as I could, I picked up the phone and dialed Will’s number. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice felted with sleep. I tried to speak but no sound emerged from my throat. “I’m hopping into a cab, I’ll be right there,” he said.
Half an hour later, his lanky silhouette filled the doorway. He tiptoed past my new roommate to my side of the room and wriggled in beside me, his long legs extending over the edge of my hospital bed. “What happens when NBA players get cancer? Do they have to order custom-made, extra-long hospital beds?” I whispered. “Good question,” Will replied. “Let’s just be glad you’re the patient.” I scooted up to the top of the mattress so that we lay forehead to forehead. I relaxed into Will, going slack in his arms, breathing in his warm, soapy scent, like a bundle of clothes fresh out of the dryer.
* * *
—
When I woke up the next morning, my roommate was in much better spirits. “Yo, Park Avenue!” she called out as I walked to the joint bathroom that was located on her side of the room. It was my fifth trip that morning—the egg retrieval surgery had left me with a painful urinary tract infection.
“Hi,” I said, leaning against my IV pole. “I’m Suleika; it’s really nice to meet you.”
“Estelle,” she replied, waving from her bed. “Pleasure.”
“Why’d you call me Park Avenue?”
“Because you’ve got that fancy hairdo.”
My hand traveled self-consciously to the freshly cut, chin-length bob framing my jaw. A few days before entering the hospital I’d asked a hairdresser to shear off my waist-length mane. A preemptive strike against the chemo that would soon claim all of my hair as its prize.
“I used to have it long,” I explained to Estelle. “Thought I’d shave my head before coming here, but my mom said she wasn’t ready to see me like that. So, I compromised.” The hairdresser had given me my shorn hair to take home, a long auburn braid, which I’d asked my mother to donate to Locks of Love. Months later I’d find it in a small wooden jewelry box, tucked away in her studio.
“Well, I think you look real nice, but I’m going to keep calling you Park Avenue if that’s all right,” Estelle said. “I’ve got a bad case of chemo brain, and I know I won’t be able to remember that other name of yours.”
I laughed, nodding. “What brings you here?” I wanted to ask her what type of cancer she had, but I wasn’t yet sure what the etiquette was between patients.
“Liver cancer, stage four. What about you? A young lady like yourself shouldn’t be here. You should be out and about with your man. That’s right, don’t think I didn’t hear you two last night!”
I blushed. “Leukemia, stage…I don’t know. I haven’t asked the doctors yet.”
“Surgery? Radiation? Chemo?” Estelle asked, as though we were discussing Italian soda flavors.
“Chemo, my first round. They say I’ll be here for three weeks or so.”
“Ooph, that’s a long one. Better go walk around the unit and get some exercise while you still can.”
* * *
—
Per Estelle’s advice, I got in the habit of seizing the moments when I had enough energy to explore. Using my IV pole as a makeshift skateboard, I zipped around the cancer ward, chatting up the nurses and the other patients; within a few days, I’d made a handful of friends. “Oncology’s tween queen,” Will crowned me in jest. A year too old for pediatrics but decades younger than most of the other patients in adult oncology, I felt out of place, but I was trying to make the best of the circumstances.
It was during one of my skateboarding sessions that I met Dennis, who was in his early forties and never seemed to have any visitors. When our meal trays kept arriving with the food still frozen—some genius forgetting to nuke them in the microwave—Dennis declared a hunger strike, going door to door to rally the other patients. I was all for hospital activism, but I was also concerned for his health. After a day or two, I asked Will to go find him the frothiest chocolate milkshake the Upper East Side had to offer, promptly bringing the hunger strike to an end.
In the room next t
o mine was a woman who was always asleep. I caught glimpses of her curled in bed whenever I walked by. She was so skeletal she looked almost cadaverous, her skin a waxy, jaundiced hue. On most days, her teenage daughter came to visit. Then, one afternoon, I heard a low, strangled cry, an animal bellow of grief that pierced the wall between our rooms. I got out of bed and watched from my door as the nurses escorted the daughter down the hall, consoling her as she sobbed. Soon after, the mother’s lifeless corpse was wheeled away and a custodian arrived to clean the room. By noon the next day, another patient had taken her place.
My new neighbor was from Algeria. His name was Yehya, and he was undergoing treatment for lymphoma. He had a distended belly, lymph nodes like overripe plums bulging from his neck, and the skinniest legs I’d ever seen. We quickly became pals, chatting away in a patois of French and Arabic about our fatherlands and faith and how lucky we were to have gotten sick in America, where we had access to this kind of medical care. It was Ramadan and his wife came to the hospital each night, carrying a giant Tupperware filled with iftar—the meal Muslims eat at sundown to break fast—but he rarely took more than a bite.
One day, the doctors moved Yehya to a private room, a few doors down, with a window overlooking Central Park. He wept with gratitude and dropped to his knees to pray, but accidentally fell and hit his head on the linoleum floor. “What happened?” the nurses shouted when they heard the crash, rushing in and ordering a CT scan of his brain. Later, Yehya confessed to me that he had lied to the nurses and told them he tripped. “I didn’t want to seem like some kind of Muslim nut,” he told me. Illness complicated everything, even—maybe, especially—prayer.
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