When Megan got back they were trying to start the IV. Once the ER nurses got the fluids running in me they would take me to the oncology unit. When I was really sick and getting chemo in the hospital every month I had a Meta-port. It was implanted in my chest and they would numb the spot and access my veins through my chest. It kept the veins in my arms and hands from getting ruined from the harsh drugs, plus it was easy if I was dehydrated, or needed blood. I remember being so happy when I was in remission, and they had taken it out. Now as the nurse dug into my arm, looking for the scrawny vein that had packed up and moved away, I wished I had it back. After three tries, a male nurse finally found one in my hand.
“It’s probably not going to work if you need meds, it’s so small. Hopefully we can get enough fluids in you to pump up the other ones before they need them.”
They took me to the oncology unit then and got me checked into a room. It felt good to lie on the cool sheets of the hospital bed and I had just started to fall asleep when the nurse came in to check my vitals. After she did that, she told me that Dr. Harris wanted them to draw blood too. Great, hopefully my little skinny vein held up. I looked at poor Meg, sitting there at the bedside and told her, “Hey, thanks for bringing me. You don’t have to stay here.”
She just made a face at me. I knew that no matter what I said, she wouldn’t leave me alone. When grandma got here, and I knew too that she would come, then Meggs might leave. The nurse took the blood and left, and I finally got to drift off to sleep for a while.
I had strange dreams; it probably had something to do with not having much fluid in my brain. Brock was in all of them, and we were dancing on the rooftops of all the building at the university. He was singing to me, sometimes it was Justin Timberlake, but one time…it was Brittany Spears and I have to admit, I was embarrassed for him. Just about the time we had danced our way across the rooftops and were standing at the edge of the roof of the three story tall library, he went in for the kiss. This time I was going to do it, I couldn’t wait for our lips to meet….
“Molly…Molly wake up.” I opened one eye. It was Dr. Harris. Damn you evil oncologist! I opened the other eye, and where Megan had been in my peripheral vision before now sat Grandma.
“Hi Grandma,” I said, “Hi, Dr. Harris.” I was still mad at him for ruining the kiss, but Grandma was here so I had to be polite.
“Hey Molly. How are you feeling?” Grandma asked.
“I’m okay, Grandma,” I told her. “I’m just a little dehydrated. Everyone’s overreacting a bit, I think.”
Dr. Harris cut in then and said, “Molly, your hemoglobin is low. We’re going to have to give you some blood too.” See, pure evil. Now I would be here all day. He wasn’t finished yet though, as he went on to say, “I’m going to admit you at least overnight too.”
“Oh no, I have classes tomorrow. I don’t have time to be lying in a bed…”
“Molly,” he interrupted me. He was not only evil, he was rude. “Your Bun/Creatinine ratio is 10:1.”
I wished that I didn’t know what that meant. But, unfortunately, my evil oncologist was one of those outstanding communicators and excellent teachers. When we first started all of this nonsense he had explained to me more than I thought I needed to know about Blood Urea Nitrogen and Creatinine. The BUN was a molecule that came from protein breakdown. It mostly gets excreted when we pee, but the amount of it in your blood can indicate the rate of blood flow through your nephrons.
Creatinine is also released into the blood by muscle, and it measurement shows how well the kidneys are able to either reabsorb it…as they should, or if it’s just excreted. If I was normal, my ratio would be around 15:1. A 10:1 meant bad things, likely a necrotic kidney, or at least necrotic nephrons inside the kidney. Necrotic means dead and to a girl with only one kidney, that could mean dead period. It was not the best news I had ever gotten.
“So what do we do about that?” I asked him.
“First we take care of your blood count, and then we’ll run some more tests,” he said.
I looked at Grandma. Her face was drawn tight like it always is when she worries about me and that line between her eyebrows was deep. Poor thing, she was really pretty for an almost sixty-year-old woman. In her heyday, she had been beautiful. Sometimes when I look at her and I see the lines around her eyes I wonder if she would look ten years younger if it hadn’t been for me and all of the worrying she does. I held my hand out to her and she took it. She smiled at me; she wanted me to believe everything would be okay. That’s what grandma’s do. I closed my eyes and tried to drift back into the dream.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BROCK
Jake was on the couch playing video games when I came out of my room with my guitar slung across my shoulder.
“Where are you off to?” Jake asked me as he shot at the zombies that ran amok through the city.
“I’m going to go over to the hospital. I don’t have much going on today. I thought I’d see if they’d let me play for some of the kids or old people in the oncology unit.”
“Not hanging out with Molly today?”
It was hard to have a conversation with a guy in his boxers, sitting sideways with his tongue hanging out for balance. “I don’t know, maybe later,” I said. “Where’s Megan today?”
Jake shrugged, “I think she had her fill of me last night. She wasn’t impressed with the place we stayed. I guess it was because she had to move dirty dishes and empty pizza boxes off the sofa where she was supposed to sleep. Tim’s mom works…a lot. She’s not much of a housekeeper. I forgot to tell Megan that before she agreed to stay there.”
I laughed. Poor Jake was always in trouble of one kind or another. It was good that he didn’t really let it get to him I thought, as he blew up a zombie convoy and grinned from ear to ear.
“I’ll see you later,” I told him as I went out the door. The zombies were getting back up; I think the grunt was for me.
When I got to the hospital I went to the children’s unit first. I liked playing for the kids. They didn’t expect anything fancy, just fun. It also helped me put my own stuff into perspective. I mean if a bald three-year-old can sit in the bed while poison is being pumped into his veins and still giggle at my silly songs, then who was I to feel sorry for myself…ever.
I spoke to the nurses who said they were always glad to have me. They told me which rooms would be okay to go into. The first one was a little guy named Carlos. He had just turned four his mom said, and he was sitting in his crib with an IV, watching SpongeBob and eating a strawberry Gogurt when I got there. I had met him a few times before when I’d come here. I knocked on the door and his little face lit up, “Brock!” he yelled. It sounded more like “Bwock!” but I liked it.
“Hey buddy, how are you today?”
“Mama says we can go home tomorrow. I’ll be there for Michael’s birthday.” Michael was his older brother. He had told me about him the last time I was here. He was turning twelve and Carlos hero-worshipped him.
“That’s great!” I told him. I loved his enthusiasm. “That must mean you’re doing better?” I looked at his mom when I said it. The last time I had talked to her, the little guy’s tumor wasn’t responding very well to his treatments.
“The doctor changed the chemo. The last MRI showed that the tumor was shrinking.”
I looked back at Carlos and smiled at him. “High-five on that, buddy!” He held out his little hand and I gave him a five. “You have any requests?” I asked him. I knew what he was going to say; it was the same every time.
“Five little monkeys!” he squealed. It wasn’t my best work, but what are you going to do? I sat in the chair next to the bed and we sang it…five times while I strummed the tune on my guitar. It would be stuck in my head now for the rest of eternity, but as I left his room and saw that huge smile on his little face, I knew that it was worth it.
I played for two more kids. One was a little girl who was six and a half. She was shy, but she loved K
atie Perry. I did my best girl voice while I sang “Eye of the Tiger” and for some reason, that made her laugh. The next guy was a thirteen-year-old. When I’d first met him, he was really angry about being sick. He had a tumor in his brain too, an inoperable one. I told him about mine, and he said, “You’re lying. You don’t look sick.”
“I was bald as an eagle my freshman year in high school,” I told him. “You see all these tattoos? I got them to cover up the scars all of the IV’s left on my arms.” He still looked skeptical so I parted my hair and holding it apart with each hand I told him, “See the scar? That’s from one of the three surgeries.” I also had a drain in my head. When the tumor had gotten big, it blocked the ducts that drained the cerebral spinal fluid out of my head and cause horrific headaches. They put in the drain, and they had never removed it. The doctor told me that my brain had grown to it, and to take it out now would just be more traumatic. I had a tiny little bump under my hair where it was at. I told him to feel it; it was just like the one on his head, apparent because he was bald. “When you get better, you can grow your hair out and no one will ever be the wiser,” I told him. I was pretty proud of myself when he smiled. Then the little traitor blew it for me though. He turned to his mom and said, “Can I get tatted up to cover the scars?” I tried to laugh it off, but I thought maybe it was time to move on. In my defense, I did mention to him that I didn’t get the tats until it was legal.
I went to the adult unit then. The nurses told me I could just go room to room and ask each patient if they wanted to hear a song. I got quite a few takers, and sang everything from Kenny Rogers to Usher before I’d got to the last room on the end. I stepped up to the doorway of that one and saw an older woman sitting next to the bed. She was facing me, but she didn’t see me. She was looking at the dark-haired girl that lay in the bed. I looked at her face and my heart went out to her. I had seen that worried drawn look on my dad’s face more times than I could count. I thought about leaving and not disturbing her but then the sleeping girl on the bed shifted onto her back and if my guitar hadn’t been hung around my neck, I would have dropped it. It was Molly. My Molly!
Okay, in reality she’s not mine. But in my heart that was exactly what she is…my Molly. The older woman finally saw me, and she must have seen the shock on my face. She got up and came over to me. When she got closer, I could see that she had Molly’s eyes.
“Are you okay, son?” she asked me. The human capacity for empathy amazes me. A few minutes ago she was sitting here worried about Molly, and now she’s worried about me because I seem to be standing in the doorway with my mouth wide open.
“Yes, ma’am,” I told her. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I was offering to play music for the patients. I’m just surprised to see…I mean I didn’t know….”
“Do you know Molly?” I nodded, dumbly. When I found my voice again I said, “What’s wrong with her?” Her grandmother, or at least that’s who I assumed she was at the time said, “Come here, let’s sit.” She led me past the bed to two chairs by the window. I wanted to stop and touch her. Hell, I wanted to climb in the bed and hold her. She was so pale, and there was blood hanging from her IV pole and running into her arm. I followed Molly’s grandma though, and took the seat she told me to.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
Her grandmother looked at her again and said, “Molly has an amazing spirit. I’m sure she’ll be fine.” She still hadn’t answered my other question, so I stubbornly asked it again.
“What’s wrong with her?” The old woman looked at me with Molly’s eyes and said, “Molly’s a grown up now, as hard as that is for me to process sometimes. I think we should wait for her to wake up and see if she would like to tell you.” I wasn’t happy with that answer, but I thought arguing with the grandmother of the girl I was probably going to fall in love with was not the best idea. I nodded instead and then remembering my manners I said, “I’m Brock.”
Molly’s grandma smiled and said, “It’s nice to meet you Brock. I’m Gail Lewis. I’m Molly’s grandmother and her guardian.” Then she looked at the guitar and said, “So, you’re a musician?”
“Yeah,” I told her. I was having a hard time keeping enough moisture in my mouth to talk. My head was reeling with all of the questions I had. This is an oncology unit. This is where I should be…not Molly. She wouldn’t be here unless she had some kind of cancer. Why didn’t she tell me? Asked the pot to the kettle. I remembered her grandma then and I said, “I come by as often as I can and play for the patients who want me to. I especially enjoy seeing the kids. They’re little troopers. It gives you hope for the world.”
Grandma smiled and glanced over at Molly again. “They certainly are,” she said. “Molly has been giving me hope for the world since the day she was born. I had lost a little of that where her mother was concerned, I’m afraid.”
“Where is her mom?” I asked, not knowing if I was stepping over some kind of boundary or not. But, I figured her grandmother would tell me if I was.
Grandma looked sad, and then I felt really bad for asking. Then she said, “I don’t really know. Last time we talked to her she was in Georgia. She travels…a lot. She left Molly with me when she was two, and we’ve only seen her once since then…a few years ago. It was awkward for both of them; they don’t really have a bond any longer.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to think of something more profound to say. It didn’t come. Poor Molly. First she was abandoned by her own mother and then…this, whatever this was. I wondered about her dad, but didn’t ask. As it turned out, I didn’t have to. Her grandma wasn’t finished.
“Molly never knew her father. I don’t even know who he was. Thank the Lord that Molly turned out as well as she did. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”
“You’ve done a great job,” I said. I wished Molly would wake up, but then I didn’t. She hadn’t told me she was sick, I doubt she was going to be happy to see me. I tried to tell myself that I should go, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Grandma was smiling and she said, “How do you know Molly?”
“I go to school here at the university,” I told her. “My roommate is Molly’s best friend’s boyfriend.” That was a mouthful.
“Megan’s boyfriend,” Grandma said with another smile. “I met Jake once. He seems like a good boy. Megan is like another daughter to me. She’s a good girl.”
“Yes, I like Megan a lot. Jake’s okay too,” I told her. We both looked back over at Molly. She looked so small and pale against the white sheets and her dark hair. I wondered what Grandma would think if I told her how much I liked her daughter. So far the longish hair and tattoos didn’t seem to be offending her, but then she didn’t know how badly I wanted to date her granddaughter.
“Megan brought her here and called me. I’m sure that Molly told her not to. Sometimes she gets our roles mixed up and she wants to be the one who does all the worrying. I told her that was my job, and even my right as her grandmother.”
I laughed, “Yeah that sounds like Molly. She’s always thinking.”
“Too much sometimes, I’m afraid,” Grandma said. “I tell her she’s too serious. She needs to be a kid before the time has passed and she’s forced to be a grown-up. I try to help her more so that she doesn’t have to work. I told her that I don’t mind, and it would free her up to do more college things. But she says she won’t have me working two jobs while she’s not even working one. I’m afraid she’s over-doing it.”
“I think she wants to be independent very badly,” I said. I was thinking now about her telling me that she didn’t want a boyfriend and wondering how much of that was not wanting to have to tell me she was sick. It was so strange, because I could not only understand that, I could identify with it. I didn’t like telling people that I was sick because no matter how good I was doing, they still treated me differently. I knew that it was with good intentions, and also just because most of the time people just didn’t know what to say or do. But it was frustrating nonethe
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“Brock,” Grandma was saying, “Will you be here for a while?”
“I can be, if that’s okay,” I told her. What I didn’t say was, “Hitch up the wild horses and see if they could drag me away.” I think she got the point.
“That’s fine,” Grandma said. “I have a few errands and I didn’t want to leave her alone. I won’t be long, just an hour or two.”
“I won’t leave,” I told her. Then I grinned and said, “Even if she tries to throw me out when she wakes up.”
Grandma laughed then and said, “It’s likely son. Stay tough.”
“I will. Mrs. Lewis?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for letting me stay here.”
The old lady put her hand on my face then and said, “You seem like a nice boy. Thank you for staying with her.”
If she only knew…had she tried to kick me out, she may have had to physically remove me. I didn’t just want to be here when she woke up…whatever the consequences, I needed to be here. My chest was aching just seeing her in the bed. I had to see for myself that she was okay. I sat down in the chair next to her bed where her grandmother had been sitting earlier. The paleness of her skin was a stark contrast to the burgundy of the blood they were pumping into her. I looked up at the bag to see what type she was. She was AB positive, the same as me. I whispered, “See I knew I was your type.” I was glad she was asleep; that one was really corny.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MOLLY
I opened my eyes to the strip of fluorescent lights above me. The lights were off, but because they were there, I knew that I wasn’t in my room at the dorm. I looked to my right and saw the tube going into my arm, attached to the bags of clear fluid and blood. I was in the hospital…again. I remembered now. Megan brought me here because I was feeling weak, and the doctor didn’t have good news…and Grandma was here. I turned my head to where she was supposed to be and imagine my surprise when instead of my grandmother, I was looking at Brock.
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