by Nicola Haken
Hospital was a lot more boring without chemotherapy to pass the time, not that I missed it of course. I missed having Tracy to chat to, however. I even kinda missed how tired it made me, which sounds a tad sadistic, because now I had to find new ways to entertain myself instead of sleeping the hours away. So far I’d wandered the corridors, pushing the drip stand along with me. I’d named him Peter Pole. That’s how bad life had got. I’d visited the cafeteria downstairs, walked the corridors down there for a while, and then ended up back in my bed.
“I’ve never been so glad to see you,” I said the second I saw Seb making his way to my bed. Swinging my legs off the edge of my mattress, I jumped up and kissed his cheek.
Hands on my shoulders, he held me back, studying my face. “What’s wrong?”
Crap. I’d worried him. “I love you and I’d missed you. Is that a crime?”
“So you’re okay?”
“I’ve got cancer, so it depends on what your definition of okay is.” I flashed a teasing smile and all I got in return was a playful slap to the top of my arm – thankfully not my sore arm or I would’ve killed the bastard. Or cried. Definitely cried. “The doctor’s due any minute,” I told him, climbing back onto the bed.
Seb shrugged out of his jacket and hooked it over the back of the visitor’s chair before taking a seat. “Do you think he’ll let you home soon?”
I shrugged. “Doubt it. Think he’s keeping me here to add some eye candy to his work day.”
“Yeah.” Seb chuckled. “I’m sure that’s it.”
We’d just got into a conversation about Seb’s spare room when the doctor arrived. He’d left the boys carrying all the boxes of junk downstairs to the living room to sort through, but he’d have to finish telling me about it later.
“How are you feeling today, Oliver?”
I reached out to shake Doctor Sullivan’s proffered hand and nodded. “Good, thanks.” Unlike all the other times I’d given that answer, I actually meant it today.
“I have your biopsy results.”
My heart seized in my chest as he tapped on the closed blue file in his hands. My back went rigid and my mouth dried out. I wasn’t ready. “But…I, uh, I thought you’d call first.” It sounded ridiculous as soon as I’d said it.
“I would have if you hadn’t already been here. I can go out into the corridor and give you a ring first if you’d like?” he said with a playful smile, pointing over his shoulder.
“No, he wouldn’t,” Seb answered for me, his voice impatient as he leaned forward and steepled his hands under his chin.
“Okay, okay…” I sucked in a deep breath, tipping my head back and rolling my eyes towards the ceiling. “Hit me.”
It’s good news. He wouldn’t have smiled if it was bad news.
Maybe it was a nervous smile. Maybe he was lightening the blow.
Fuck, it’s bad news.
“It’s excellent news, Oliver. There were no visible leukaemia cells in your last biopsy. You’re in remission.”
W-wait…what?
Oh…Oh my God.
I looked at Seb, who had fat tears bubbling on the edges of his eyes, and then back at Doctor Sullivan. “It worked?” My voice came out as a broken whisper and I blindly reached out, seeking Seb’s hand. His trembling fingers found mine and we locked them together. For the first time I had real hope I’d still be able to do this, take his hand, even when it was bony and wrinkled and we were ninety years old. “It really worked?”
“It did.” Doctor Sullivan gave a confident and reassuring nod. “I’ve drawn up a plan for the rest of your treatment but we don’t need to discuss that right now. I’ll give you some time to let the good news settle in and come back after dinner. How does that sound?”
“That sounds…” I trailed off, looking at Seb again. I felt a thousand pounds lighter. I felt…freer. Cleaner, somehow. I saw a future again. Suddenly, I could think about work, the salon, the bar, hopes, dreams, what to have for tea next week…and it didn’t hurt. Before, everything hurt. Big plans, little decisions, they all seemed impossible.
“Oliver?”
Doctor Sullivan’s voice snapped me back into reality and I flicked my gaze to his face. “Sorry. That’s fine. Thank you. Thank you is what I meant to say. Thank you for everything.”
Clutching the file to his chest with one arm, he raised his free hand in the air. “All I did was prescribe the drugs. Hard work’s all on you, my friend. Keep it up. This isn’t over yet.”
I knew that, of course I did. Remission didn’t mean cured, but damn, right now I didn’t care. I’d worry about the chemo later. At least this time I’d know it was working.
Bring it on.
Seb and I were sitting in the hospital garden the next day, preparing to say goodbye. Perched on a wooden bench between two giant hydrangeas, we’d been talking about my upcoming cycle of chemo, which would begin next week, and now he was leaving for a few hours.
“I’ll be back later with the lads,” he said, squeezing my hand. “If they’re still talking to me once I’ve worked their arses off.” He winked and I laughed. “I’m gonna get them painting the skirting boards and door frame in Ty’s new room. Might teach them how to fix that shelf in the hall too. Life skills,” he said with a wicked grin.
“They won’t know what’s hit ‘em. Oh, and hey, will you check my bank to make sure my rent’s come out?”
He gave me a funny look. “I did that yesterday…after you asked me to. And yes, it did.”
“Oh. Right.” I shook my head. “And did you apologise to Gemma about me not being available to do her make-up for the wedding?”
He pulled a face. “Not that an apology is required, because you’re not off work with a hangover for Christ’s sake…but yes, I did. I told you that yesterday too. One of the other girls did it instead apparently.”
“Right. Okay.” I nodded, my eyebrows furrowing. God knows where those memories had disappeared to. Scattered thoughts and a foggy mind played a regular part in my new life as a cancer patient, but they were something I’d yet to get used to. Tracy called it chemo brain, but my last cycle ended weeks ago and I didn’t know how long I could keep blaming the treatment for. Maybe I was just getting old.
Speaking of Tracy…
“There’s Tracy…” I spotted her walking along the pathway, linking the arm of her eldest daughter. “Tracy!”
Her head turned and her gaze caught mine. She waved, and then said something to her daughter – who carried on towards the hospital as Tracy made her way over to me.
“I’ll leave you guys to it,” Seb said, leaning in to kiss my cheek.
Nodding, I said goodbye and watched him walk away, offering a brief hello to Tracy as they passed each other. I always felt a little ache in my chest when he left, which was absurd because he’d be back in a few hours. But…I missed him. It felt like a piece of me was missing when he was gone. Soppy as shit, I know.
“Hey, handsome,” Tracy said, sitting next to me on the bench and wrapping her tiny arms around me. She’d lost weight, a lot of it, and I had to force myself not to allow the shock to register on my face. “I didn’t mean to ignore you. I meant to reply later, later turned into tomorrow…” She pulled back from our hug, sighing. “Tomorrow into the day after, and well, I’m sorry, honey. How’ve you been?”
I couldn’t prevent the beaming smile that crawled across my lips. “I’m great. It worked. The chemo worked! I start my consolidation therapy next week.”
“Oh, Olli, that’s fantastic.” She clapped her hands together, held them under her chin, and smiled. “I’m so happy for you.”
“I can’t believe it. Think I’d subconsciously convinced myself it’d be bad news because when the doctor told me…” I broke off, blowing out a puff of air. I felt winded by the news all over again. “My PICC site got infected which is why I’m back in here, but I don’t care about that anymore. I just feel so bloody…” I couldn’t even think of a word powerful enough to describe ho
w I felt.
“Alive?”
“Yeah,” I agreed on a ridiculously dreamy sigh. “What about you? How are you doing?”
Her smile turned sad as she fiddled with the knot in her pink and blue bandana. “My chemo didn’t work.” She offered a small shrug and continued to smile that sad smile.
The words twisted like a knife in my gut. My breath caught and my pulse thudded in my ears. No. “So…They’ll try again?”
“That was my again. We knew it was a long shot going into it. It just keeps spreading. They’ve found metastases in my liver and kidneys.”
“So…I mean…” Shit. “What next?”
“Pain management and palliative care.”
My breath exhaled with a stutter. Oh…God. Palliative care – AKA, end of life care. Oh, Tracy. Tears burned the rims of my eyes but I couldn’t let them fall, couldn’t blink, couldn’t fall apart. If she could keep it together, then I owed it to her to try and do the same.
“I don’t know the details yet. My appointment’s in…” She pushed up the sleeve of her jacket and checked her watch. “Twenty minutes.”
“But…” There must be something. I couldn’t finish my sentence because my mouth had dried out, the moisture darting straight to my eyes it seemed.
“Lauren’s pregnant,” she blurted, the sudden shift in topic confusing me for a second. “Told me last night.” The corners of her lips curled higher, lifting her sunken cheeks. No longer a sad smile, it brightened her entire face. “I’m okay with the idea of dying. Truly, I am. I’ve accepted my time is near. I just hope with all my heart I get to see my grandbaby first.”
“This isn’t fair.” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Leaning forward, I hugged the woman who I was proud to call my friend like it was the last time I ever would. I held her close while my heart broke for her, for her kids, and for the grandchild who would never remember her.
And guilt pooled in my stomach…because I was going to live. I didn’t deserve life more than she did, but I got to survive for likely no other reason than the luck of the draw. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fucking fair. I’d lost count of how many times I’d said that lately, not that it made a blind bit of difference. No one was listening to me. If there was a god, he didn’t care.
* * *
Six months later…
The elation of my biopsy results was relatively short lived, the first cycle of my consolidation chemotherapy a stark reminder that my battle was far from over. I hadn’t been lucky enough to avoid the sickness with the new drug combination, but thanks to the lower doses my immune system held up enough for me to be treated as an outpatient this time so at least I had the privilege of spewing my guts up in the comfort of my own home. My new home. Seb’s home.
Our home.
I gave up the tenancy on my council house as soon as the doctor discharged me after my infection, and Tyler and I moved our belongings to Seb’s house the same week. It was quite sad, really, how little we had. Most of our furniture was either worthless or broken, so after leaving that behind we were left with a few measly boxes and bin bags. Not much to show for the years we’d spent together.
But that didn’t matter now. We’d make new memories, gain new things, here with Seb. Living here was…perfect. Everything I never knew I wanted, didn’t know I needed before I met Sebastian. This was the kind of life I’d have dreamt about if I’d known such happiness existed. Well, if you took out the parts where I was ill, or yelling at everyone because I felt sick and blamed other people because I was being an arsehole. Yeah, apart from that it was perfect.
I didn’t mean to be such an arse, but sometimes the exhaustion took over, the pain and fear, and Seb was usually closest so he’d be the one I’d snap at. Then I’d feel like a dick. I was getting better, I knew that, a privilege denied to too many in my situation, and yet I couldn’t keep the tormenting ‘what if?’ thoughts at bay. What if they got it wrong? What if it comes back? What if, what if, what if…
Six months down the line, chemo complete and my body growing stronger every day, I began to suspect those thoughts would always be there. They were part of me now. Cancer was part of me now. I had to find a way to accept that and not be a twat to Seb in the process. I may have been in remission, but it would be five years until I got the official ‘all clear’. That seemed like a lifetime away, far too long to let those morbid thoughts and fears about mortality rates and statistics take over my entire life. What I really needed to do was remind myself that I was alive and remember how fucking lucky I was.
Unlike Tracy, who passed away three weeks ago – six days after the birth of her grandson. They say you have no say in when you die, that it’s out of our control, but Tracy held on to see that baby, I know she did. It didn’t go as she planned, or how she deserved. She couldn’t hold or cuddle him. She couldn’t even sit upright during her final days. But she saw him. She got to offer him a smile, maybe the last smile she’d ever give. I wouldn’t know because I left the hospice that day, leaving Tracy alone with her family…and I never saw her again.
She left a bigger hole in my life, and my heart, than I’d expected considering I hadn’t known her that long. But we’d spent so much time together. We talked most days, if not in person then via text messages or phone calls. She’d been a wonderful friend, offered me so much support. Of course, I had Seb who I loved with all my heart, but he didn’t ‘get’ cancer like Tracy did. He tried to understand but he’d never know how it felt to have something eating away at your life and your body from the inside. He’d never know how isolating that was, how different the world looked now, or even the guilt that laid heavy on my chest from seeing the pain and worry in the eyes of those who cared about me.
At least, I hoped he’d never truly understand, feel what I’d felt first hand. I wouldn’t wish the last few months of my life on anybody.
But I had a life, and I planned to make it count. I’d always been too busy to look back over the years, take stock of my life, but receiving a cancer diagnosis makes time stop. That’s how it feels anyway. At first, you can’t look forward, you don’t even know if there is a forward, so you start to drown in memories instead. Wondering if I’d reached the end of my life made me realise how much of it I’d wasted worrying about things that didn’t matter.
Did it matter if Tyler and I had to get warm under blankets because the gas had ran out? No. We were still warm. Did it matter that we’d eaten beans on toast for three nights in a row because I couldn’t afford to go shopping until weekend? Not really. It filled us up, and I liked beans on toast. And hey, baked beans count as one of your five-a-day. Did any of it really matter? Money, broken cupboards, petty arguments…
No.
Life mattered. People. Family. Smiling mattered. Laughing, singing, flicking cereal at Ty, Seb, and Scott across the breakfast table. Those things mattered, and I had them. They’d still be there if I ran out of money, had a bad day, or had a huge row with Tyler. So that’s what I vowed to focus on. I promised Tracy before she died I would find something to laugh at every single day, which so far hadn’t been difficult living with Seb. I promised her I’d sing and dance, eat too much chocolate and walk around the house naked…which I hadn’t done yet for fear of mentally scarring Tyler for life. I even promised I’d cry and scream when I needed to, punch cushions or smash a plate or two.
I promised her, and myself, I would live.
Feel.
Love.
Love mattered most of all.
“Have I lost you again?”
Seb’s voice snapped me back into the room and I craned my neck to look at him. With Tyler and Scott on their school trip to Disneyland Paris, we were supposed to be upstairs getting ready for a night out with Rhys and Benny, but somehow ended up in bed. What can I say? We had a lot of ‘catching up’ to do now I was feeling better.
Lifting my head off his chest, I rested it on a pillow next to his and tucked my hands under my che
ek. “Sorry. I was just thinking about Tracy.”
Reaching out, he stroked along my head, across the half an inch or so of hair that had found its way back, with the back of his hand. “You miss her.” A statement, not a question.
“Yeah. I keep thinking back to my first chemo session. I remember looking around the room, wondering if we’d all make it. We didn’t…and it’s haunting me. I can’t stop thinking about it, about her, about everyone else in that room who I didn’t get to know. I wonder if anyone else has lost the fight, too.”
“Oh, Oliver. I wish I could take those thoughts away for you. I’d take this whole damn year away if I could.”
“No. God no. This year…it’s been the worst, but also the best of my life. Firstly, without this year, I wouldn’t have you. I wouldn’t have this,” I said, removing a hand from under my cheek to motion it over our bodies. “No one’s ever really held me before…not like you do.”
His lips melted into a frown, like he felt sorry for me.
“I never wanted them to,” I added. “Never needed them to…until you. That’s why, whatever else happened this year, however bad things got, it’ll always be the best year of my life too. Secondly, I’m not saying if I had the choice I’d have chosen to get cancer, but it’s changed me somehow, and I can’t say I’m ungrateful for that.”
A deep crease formed between his eyebrows and his hand slipped from my head, down my cheek, before settling on my chest. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“It’s made me so appreciative. I have so much to be thankful for and I never saw it before, but I’ll never forget it again. If you took this year away I might have spent the rest of my life bumbling around not knowing who I really was, what my purpose was, worrying about stupid stuff, taking Tyler for granted. I didn’t really see the point of life before. I was lost in routine and, if I’m honest, self-pity…but I get it now. Life is wonderful! I might not have been put on this earth to change the world, but it doesn’t mean I can’t make a difference in someone’s world.”