One More Breath

by Delaney Williams

  He nods, a look of bewilderment covering his face. “Let’s just go over CHOP. C-Cyclophosphamide or Cytoxan. In large doses, this drug is an immunosuppressant. It will kill the white blood cells. Side effects I have dealt with in the past are nausea and vomiting, hair loss, immune system suppression, and the like. I am sure there are more. I know it can mess with my organs, specifically my bladder, and is one of the main drugs that causes infertility. This one, although it sucks, is relatively normal as far as chemo goes.

  “H-Doxorubicin. This one has the nausea and vomiting, along with hair loss, but the worst is the mouth and throat sores. I will not be able to even swallow my own spit and will be on a suction machine. Food ends when that happens. It also injures the heart, and the doctors will monitor closely to make sure it is not doing more harm than good. Last time, it got too harsh and they had to adjust to a lower dose to save my heart. This is the drug I have nightmares about. Who knows what will happen this time.”

  By now, his face is pale and he’s sweating. He moves to the closest plastic seat and sits, motioning for me to continue. “O-Vincristine. This will also make me nauseous and vomit, as well as cause the hair loss. I will be gross. Vincristine is about the same as the Cytoxan, but works on different cells. Not fun, but doable.

  “Finally there is the P-Prednisone. I know people who have colds or whatever and use this drug, thinking nothing of it, but at the huge doses I will be getting, I will hardly be recognizable. I will be an angry, round, baldheaded cancer patient. ‘Roid Rage in full effect.

  “So there you go. Those are the basics. There is more, tons more, but I am not going to tell you. I need you strong for Bug. Name him. Please. Tell him I love him always. And don’t take it personally when I yell. I promise I love you. Oh, and make them give me Benadryl. Sleeping is so much better than being awake. Morphine is okay, it helps, but sleeping is the only time the pain isn’t in charge.

  “I will have vivid nightmares and wake up screaming, thinking they are real. Comfort me. You cannot solve this. Hold me when you can, and when you can’t, we will make up a code. I will be less and less coherent and more withdrawn. It is not you. Please don’t think that. I love you. I will always love you. I just may not be able to tell you. Until then, tell me about my son.”

  ANDER

  How does one switch gears just like that? From someone telling me so calmly and scientifically about what will kill her enough to bring her back to life, to someone who wants me to tell her about our son. I guess only someone who has done it before and has the perspective to know the world is infinitely bigger than we are. My love for this woman grows with each passing day. There can be no one stronger.

  I crawl in next to her and start to describe our son. How he smells and the sounds he makes. How I swear he smiles, but the nurses say its gas. We laugh as we talk, knowing our time together is precious. When visiting hours are over, I am left with nowhere to go. For the very first time in my life, I feel homeless. Everything I care about is here, in this hospital. I wander the halls until a nurse asks what I am here for and I try to explain. She has seen this before. I can see it in her eyes. She places me in another plastic chair and tells me to wait. I put my head in my hands and, for the first time in my life, I place everything in someone higher than me. There has to be a higher being. We cannot be it. Look how messed up we make things. Look at what I did to my sick and dying wife. Someone has to be better, has to be stronger, has to know the answers, so I pray.

  Suddenly, I feel a small tap on my shoulder and look up to see my mom. “Ama,” I cry. She sits next to me and pulls me to her while I sob.

  Everything I have ever been means nothing now. All that matters to me is Bug and my wife. One is safe, but I have no clue what to do with a child alone; the other is dying, but I will not let her. I cry until I have no more tears and my body is spent. My mother, just like when I was a child, helps me to my feet and walks me to her car to take me to her home.

  ****

  I don’t know how long I slept, but when I wake, my first thought is to get to the hospital. I hurry through my routine, give my mom a thankful hug, and take a travel mug full of coffee. I have already learned that hospital coffee might just make you become a patient. My mom tells me that my siblings have brought my car and some clothes, handing me the clothes and the keys. I run back upstairs to change, then race to the hospital.

  My first stop is the nursery because they have stricter visiting hours. I hold Bug as long as I can, holding him to my chest and telling him all the things we will do when he grows up. How we will visit beaches and walk in the sand. How we will run to the ocean and get wet, then run back and surprise mommy with our sprinkles. He opens his eyes a few times and grabs my finger, giving me hope.

  When I leave him to go see Leire, I know something had changed overnight. The room she is in now has a double door system with a NO VISITORS sign on it. I have already had my last chance and we have not even made our signal yet. Feeling broken again, I collapse at her door until a nurse notices me and asks if I am her Ander. Her Ander. Only she would say that, letting other females know who I belong to. I nod, unable to speak as she hands me a note.

  Ander, I didn’t expect my counts to drop or the chemo to move so fast, but really try to think of this as a good thing. That it is preparing my body faster for the healing blood I will get from Bug. Have you come up with a name? I think I like Kieran or Ian, or maybe Liam. I don’t know. You pick, sweetheart. You are his father. You take care of him for me. Inside this letter, you will find another one. Please don’t read it here. Find somewhere safe and quiet, where it is just you. Somewhere we will be together.

  Now, come to the window and look at me. We are going to use a rating system. Eventually, I will be too tired to move, so we will rely on my eyes. Do you see them? Do you see my eyes? They are looking for you and only for you.

  I stop reading to look up and in the middle of all that wiring and machinery, despite the sallow look and swollen face, are the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. I remember first seeing them when she walked into the shop and was stunned by the lightness of the blue. They were almost like ice. Smiling, I nod at her. She smiles back. I pick up the letter and start reading again.

  I will have good days, bad days, and hell days. They don’t tell you about those. The days you wish you can crawl from your skin just to escape the pain your body is in. Days when, even in your sleep, you are screaming for help but no one comes, except to wake you to say that you are screaming again, then give you more medicine to put you back to sleep. Those are the hell days. The further we go, the more hell days there will be. The more days I will want to give up, I will want my body to stop fighting, but you are going to be there for me, standing outside that window, using our system to pull me back together again, okay? So, easy enough… Two blinks is I am peachy, I have strength; one blink is I am done; no response means it’s a hell day and I need you to pick me up and give me strength.

  I look at her again and she nods and blinks twice, telling me all is well right now. But I don’t understand how I’m supposed to pull her out if she wants to give up. She weakly points to the paper as if reading my mind.

  The nurses know, and they will help. They will tell me you are here, and you will tell them all about Bug and what you named him. Save the special stuff, the stuff he has done and how much he’s grown, for those moments. Save the stuff you have planned for our future for those moments. Write them down as they come and when I don’t blink, choose one to give to the nurse to read and you will see me blink. I promise. I will never give up as long as I have you and him waiting for me, telling me what life will be.

  When he is big enough, can you bring him? He will bring blinks even on no blink days. Now, here is where we part. I don’t want you to sit there all day, watching me go through this. I want to feel human and not like a rat in a cage. I want you to act like we went for coffee yesterday, not for chemo. I need your life to live for me. Can you do that? Can you promis
e to check on me daily and bring me letters, but not hang around, waiting for the ball to drop? Because that’s it what it feels like. The pain hurts, but thinking I am losing you is much worse. So, please, tell me you get this and can do this for me. Visit me daily, show me you love me, write me letters, then leave me to read them and try my best to beat this. That is what I need from you. Also, call me the names only you know and use. Okay. I am going to sleep now. Smile at me and tell me you love me. I will be here tomorrow. I promise.

  Love always,

  Leire

  As I fold that paper, another letter falls to the floor. I tuck it into a pocket for later. I look up to see she is sleeping, and I press my hand to the glass, tears running down my face. I turn to leave, heading to our home.

  When I get there, the smell of her surrounds me and I find paper and begin to write. I have never been a writer but now, it seems, I am. I must have dozed off because I wake in the morning, my face pressed against the paper on the table.

  LEIRE

  My body hurts. Everything hurts. If I had hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, and fingernails, I’m sure those would hurt, too. I am spitting my saliva into a red tube that makes gross suction sounds. Up and down the machine goes. The nurse comes in wearing a full “hazmat” suit and begins her checks. She starts with the pain machine, giving me a bolus of the medicine so she can at least touch me today…maybe.

  My heart rate and blood pressure are so low, I can see the worry lines on her face. I have been through this enough to read the expressions. This is only step one. I have to do this twice, or enough times to kill my entire system. When I was fourteen, my doctor told me that chemotherapy was suspended death. It was using chemicals to fool your body into believing it was dead so it no longer produced any cells. The fast growing cells, like hair, nails, et cetera, went first. If you were lucky, the cancer cells also went. If you weren’t, you were suspended, given just enough to survive but not live. That is where I am…in purgatory. After the last round, I looked it up to see what the huge deal was. It turns out purgatory is an “intermediate state after death where one is given the chance to prove they deserve to be in heaven.” My purgatory is different. I am not fully dead, but I am almost there. As for heaven… After all I have been through, it is the only thing I have going for me. After all this pain and misery, after all this torture, there has to be a better place, a place where there is no more pain and I wouldn’t have to worry about this disease anymore. That is my heaven. I know it exists like I know I exist. The pain tells me so.

  ****

  Months go by and Ander is amazing at bringing me letters every single day and sitting while I read them. He tells me about work, and about Wyatt and his unsuccessful attempts to date his daughter. He lets me know when our son is released to go home, and how his mom is helping him learn to parent. He tells me about going to the ocean and building sandcastles with him, whom he still has not named. My fear is that when he’s old enough, he will name himself something like Blue Bear, which is his favorite toy, according to his father. I live for his letters. On days when I can’t blink, when I want to give up, his smiling face makes me fight, but I can feel myself weakening. I don’t know if I can pull out another miracle this time.

  ANDER

  I write her letters until I can’t write anymore. I tell her about everything from the shop and our friends, to Bug and I. Even though I do have Lola, I tell her about how I am learning to be a dad for the first time. I tell her how I have been peed on more times than I can count, and I tell her about getting up at all hours to feed and care for him. I tell her everything, especially about how much I love her. I tell her about what we are going to do when she is better. I talk about sex with her, how she feels and tastes, and how I wake up hard just from dreaming of her. It is in those moments I can see little laugh lines form around her nearly unrecognizable face.

  She is begging me to choose a name because Bug is now almost four months old. She says he’s going to name himself something like xylophone or blue bear, but I cannot do it without her. Besides, he doesn’t care. Most little kids get called nicknames anyway. I refuse to believe she will not have a part in his naming and upbringing. I also refuse to read the letter she wrote me because I know what it is going to say. I want nothing to do with that. If I took her hope, I am just going to have to hope for both of us.

  Bug and I make the rounds to the oncology unit at least once a day. Thankfully, owning my own shop helps me get there during visiting hours. The nurses have taken to putting a padded chair by the window of her room for me. As we get closer to the time she will have the transplant, the sicker I see her getting. I see no blink days and the panic sets in. Even bringing Bug with me sometimes fails to get a response. I know the nurses are now reading the letters out loud to her because she is too weak to hold them up on her own, let alone touch them.

  Leire was right when she said that this would be hard and that I would not recognize her. There have been some days she’s sent me home, saying she doesn’t want to see me anymore. There have been days she tells the nurses to turn off the machines and let her die. However, they keep the machines running and I show up the next day and the day after, and so on. I know she keeps thinking I am going to see her one day and just give up, but that’s not me. That’s not what I signed up for when I married her.

  As for life outside the hospital, it goes on. My divorce goes through without any issues. I mean, who would want the judge to know they are a coke addict and using the child support for their habit? So, thankfully, my life has been quiet on that front. Lola’s graduation is wonderful, even though it is missing the person who made it happen. My daughter is officially a high school graduate now and looking forward to college. No matter how hard I try to push, she doesn’t want to go far. She says she just got her family back and isn’t going to leave now. Also, she doesn’t want to leave Leire. I think she sees her as her mother. She maintains that she is staying local at the college she was accepted into while we were at our wedding.

  All of the days spent doing promotions and raising money for Leire seemed to boost business at the shop. I am booked for months by people I’ve only dreamed of meeting. Everyone is always asking how my wife is doing. People who walk the red carpet are concerned about her. When I tell her this, sometimes I get a small smile and an eye roll. I find that the busier I stay, the less time I have to worry and the more I can try to relax. I know this sounds crass and cruel, but I cannot live in a constant state of worry. When I tattoo, I have to push her and Bug out of my mind, focusing on the task at hand. A time to quiet my mind and focus on one thing, often resulting in some of my best work ever. I have also been slowly adding to my own tattoos, but I don’t want to show anyone until Leire can see it.

  Today, as I am folding baby clothes, I find a letter to Bug. It solidifies that I am not going to read her letter until I am sure she is okay. For her to have taken the time to write down advice and love for her unborn child because she felt she had no choice saddens me. Her advice is spot on, and I save the letter in a special place in case, God forbid, it is ever needed. It is yet another reminder that I wasn’t here providing her support, love, and hope. It is everything I did not do for her wrapped in one simple white envelope. After crying for hours, I think I fall asleep at the kitchen table. I seem to do that often. When I find more notes, gutted doesn’t begin to describe it.

  LEIRE

  I have no control over my own body anymore. I can see a man and a child, I can hear words being read to me from the nurse sitting next to the bed, but I am somewhere else. My mind and my body seem to have separated due to pain, or maybe I am dying and this is what a slow death is like. The nurse leans in to suction spit that has made its way out of my mouth. I have no clue, no control. All I can hope for is that the transfusion trial is sometime soon because I don’t know how much longer I can maintain this state. I don’t even know who I am anymore, other than pain and suffering. I feel like one of the horsemen of the apocalypse…death. I ha
ve become death.

  ANDER

  The closer to the transfusion day, the less response I am getting. The nurses tell me she sees me and hears my letter, but I am not sure she knows who we are anymore. All I see is a glazed look and a fetal position. A body so changed by drugs, it is almost not recognizable as female, let alone human. I can only hope that something gets through and she makes it to the transplant. I don’t know if she knows she is so close. I don’t even know if she knows who or where she is, let alone what happens next. I am nothing but a shadow, and it breaks my heart. I hope she makes it the final few weeks.

  LEIRE

  I am being moved. I can feel the rolling of the bed and the hands on my body. I am used to the hands and the lack of modesty. Any cancer patient will tell you one of the first things that must disappear to survive is your modesty. Mine was gone years ago. I have lost track of time and presence. Aside from a cancer patient, I don’t know who I am. I don’t know why I am here, other than for treatment, but then I get to thinking about why I would have chosen to treat myself again when I know this is the consequence? In the back of my mind, I feel there is a reason I’m doing this but, most of the time, I wish I had given up. Then I feel guilty.

  I am rolled into a room and quickly put under anesthesia, but I have no clue why. When I awake later, the nurses are telling me the transfusion went well and now all we can do is hope for it to catch. What to catch? Wasn’t I not supposed to catch anything? I close my eyes and leave behind all the confusing beeping and words for a world filled with a boy, a girl, and a baby who love each other deeply. I have no idea who they are, though. Why are they in my dreams? But they are good dreams and they are an escape, so I take them. I live in them. I hope for them.