The Chicken Who Saved Us

by Adams, Kristin Jarvis;

  Amelia’s mom dropped her knitting and pointed to a ripped vinyl chair shoved against the far wall, “You see that blue chair down the hall, honey?”

  I craned my neck around, catching sight of the hulky chair.

  “You gotta grab that thing while you can! I know that skinny little foldout excuse of a bed you have in that room, and it’s no good!”

  I raised my brows, my mouth falling open a little. What was I supposed to do? Drag the beast into our tiny room and lay claim to it?

  Amelia’s mother motioned to the nurse with a flick of her knitting needle. “Would you show this nice lady that fine piece of furniture?”

  The nurse sprang into action, wheeling it over to us. Two pieces of duct tape held together a tear at the base of the chair, the wooden armrests gouged by years of abuse. There’s not a chance I would have ever picked it out of the hallway. Andrew sat in the wheelchair, just as bewildered as I, while my new neighbor showed us the fine details of this ‘wider-but-better’ fold-out chair that would be our bed for many weeks to come. When the demo was over, the nurse whisked it away to be sanitized.

  “You’ll be thanking me,” Amelia’s mother winked, before picking up her discarded knitting.

  I smiled politely and followed another nurse as she wheeled Andrew into our new room. I had been in many rooms like this before. There was always a token window, allowing a patient a glimpse of pale sky, the top of a tree, or maybe, if one was lucky, the fluffy white contrail of a plane escaping to somewhere impossibly wonderful. The HEPA air filtration would whir through the room at timed intervals, gently fluttering at the edges of a magazine, or kissing the exposed skin of a patient, lifting a stray hair or two.

  The walls were meant to be cheerful with their blocks of wood, scenes of teddy bears on a train with giraffes, hippos, puppies, and such. Crammed in between the happy entourage of smiling companions were the wires and cables and computers—the brains of the room. Then there was the message board, where a conglomeration of important facts and figures was written. It fed us the information we desperately waited for: Our new doctor, the name of our nurse, the number to dial Nutritional Services for the food we weren’t allowed to eat, procedures scheduled for that day and the next. There was a chart we would mark each time we were able to coax our child out for a walk or into the shower. When it was full, we would receive a star or a happy face for the day and somehow feel complete.

  “Everyone here is bald!” Andrew squawked as the door shut behind us.

  “It’s the new popular hairstyle,” I replied absently, wondering where Jon was. He was twenty minutes late.

  “Well it’s a dumb one because they don’t have any hair!” Andrew replied.

  He was as much on edge as Hannah had been the night before. Her first injection was approaching, and one student at lunch had accused her of lying when she said she was donating bone marrow to her brother. That caused a cascade of emotion to pour out of her, mostly directed at our kitchen cabinets. “What’s wrong, Hannah?” I had asked, being sure to stay out of the line of fire.

  “We never have any good food in this house! And the dogs stink, and I’m not feeding them anymore. They will just have to starve! Like me!” She threw a box of macaroni on the counter and burst into tears.

  “Should we toss the cat, too? His litter box could peel the paint off the walls,” I said, hoping to make her laugh.

  She scowled. “Not funny.”

  I walked up behind her, circling both arms around her middle. “I’m just so tired of it all,” she said.

  “I know you are. We all are. These next few days are going to be tough, but I’ll hold you tight and never let you go.” I had hoped to quell both our fears.

  Oh Jon, where are you? I thought then, and now. We were rarely in the same place at the same time, alternating between home and hospital, and he trying to stuff a paying job into his already overworked days.

  Andrew broke into my thoughts with one of his bits of trivia. “Did you know that chickens are omnivores? They eat seeds and insects, but they will eat mice and lizards, too. T-Rex is a carnivore. He eats meat. I like meat. Beef. But only with A1 sauce.” He became more agitated by the moment, rocking in bed, looking for his narcotic button.

  The black and white grade school clock on the hospital wall began taunting me, ticking away, hands remaining in place, as if we would both be suspended in this state of anxiety forever. I fumbled around the top of the bed for the TV remote, hoping for a way to distract him.

  “Let’s check out the Travel Channel. They should have something good on.”

  Sure enough, his new favorite, Man v. Food, came blaring onto the screen. His demeanor changed instantly. A huge exhale, a slumping of his shoulders, and the relaxing of his jaw told me I had hit the mark. An impish smile curved at the corners of his mouth as he settled into the new bed, chattering away at Stuffed Frightful about the twelve-patty cheeseburger the TV host was attempting to eat.

  Jon arrived, shucking his coat onto the foot of Andrew’s bed before scrubbing at his face with cold hands. “Sorry I’m late. The bridge was backed up for miles. Did I miss anything?”

  “Only Amelia and her polka dot socks,” I replied.

  He cocked his head to the side.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll meet her later.”

  “She’s bald, B-A-L-D,” Andrew said without taking his eyes off the man on TV trying not to throw up the twelve beef patties he just ate.

  I noticed him rocking again and shook my head at Jon, mouthing the words, “Don’t ask.”

  Our new nurse poked her head in the room. “Mr. and Mrs. Adams, are you available for a tour of our ward?”

  We nodded, following her out of the room and down the first of four short hallways. It was distinctly different from other areas of the hospital we had inhabited. Hand sanitizing soaps and sinks were outside each of the rooms, along with carefully folded bins of one-time use robes, facemasks, gloves and booties set at intervals along the way. Doors were decorated with posters and pictures of things the cloistered patient on the other side treasured or enjoyed. It was clear to me this was the place where long-timers dwelled.

  The sporadic windows I could see in each hallway showcased the new adjoining building under construction. Our nurse noticed me ogling the construction site outside. “The entire floor they are working on now will be a new state-of-the-art cancer treatment and transplant facility,” she said. “We will be the first ones to move into the new building sometime in the next six months.”

  I hope we’re not here, I prayed silently, looking back at her with my practiced smile.

  We continued our tour of four separate pods with nursing stations in the center of each, then on to the hidden beauty of the place—a small forgotten playroom. A nearly dead sofa sat at an awkward angle in the middle of the room facing into the center of the ward.

  While Jon spoke with the nurse for what felt like eternity, I curled up on the sofa. From my vantage point, I took in beautiful shiny bald heads ranging from creamy white to rosy pink to a deep chocolate brown, all with scars and bandages—the war paint of heroes. Sparkly wild mischievous eyes peered out from a pale round face and a child zoomed down the hall on a bicycle with four wheels, a nurse cradled a baby in her lap, a central line was decorated with Elmo stickers, and a basket was filled with hand-knit hats.

  Music played, crayons clinked in a glass jar, and a visiting writer recorded the stories of brave souls in a room bustling with candy stripers and paper snowflakes. A boy walked by in nothing but a Darth Vader cape and a pair of pajama bottoms. But perhaps the most vivid picture of all was a barefoot little girl in a Seahawks T-shirt skimming her ankles, waving to the back of her hero, Russell Wilson. It was all so spectacular, these beautiful faces rising up from the ashes of heartbreak and uncertainty.

  Jon motioned for me to join him, and I reluctantly left my magical couch. Our lady in blue scrubs continued the tour by introducing us to our nursing staff. “You will have a day cr
ew and a night crew. They’ll stay with you while you’re here, so they can get to know Andrew and your family well.”

  Jon and I shared a look of relief. What a comfort it would be to see familiar faces each day, rather than a continual rotation of staff, requiring us to educate them with Andrew’s particular needs.

  “One last thing. Visitors check in at the front of the ward and won’t be allowed in the room unless we have your permission,” our nurse said.

  I thought of ‘Books on Tape’ Sue. She would be staying with Andrew in his new home. “We have a friend coming to stay with Andrew tonight. I’ll be sure to let her know.”

  Back in the room, Jon sat next to Andrew, watching Iron Chef. A prep station exploded in flames when a bottle of wine spilled into an ignited gas burner.

  “Whoa! That’s so cool!” they said in unison.

  “I’ll bet they show it again after the commercial,” Jon said, plucking Stuffed Frightful off the bed. He thumbed her glassy eyes and pinched the felt beak in the same way Andrew did.

  “I wonder if they’ll do it in slow motion. That would be even cooler,” Jon said, trying to keep Andrew engaged.

  Andrew flipped off the TV and reached for Stuffed Frightful, disappearing under the blanket with his stand-in friend.

  Jon turned to me and asked, “Will you be okay if I leave for work now?” He brought his hands to my face, smoothing my brow with his thumbs, cupping my cheeks. I relaxed my face into a smile. “That’s better. I’ve missed your smile,” he said.

  I nodded. “Me, too.”

  After Jon left, I settled in to wait for Sue. I knew she would be able to get Andrew out of his current state of agitation.

  “Nice new digs buddy!” Sue said when she arrived.

  Andrew pulled Stuffed Frightful from somewhere in his bed and dropped her into Sue’s lap. “Frightful doesn’t like it. The people here are weird and bald.”

  “Maybe bald is a new hairstyle?”

  Andrew scowled and glared at me. I shrugged my shoulders and gave him the ‘I-told-you-so’ look.

  The following morning, I asked Sue how the night went, cringing at the thought of what I might hear. Andrew had been surly and agitated when I left and I hoped Sue hadn’t received the brunt of it.

  “Pretty well, I have to say. Andrew and I read until midnight…”

  “Until midnight?”

  I had left the hospital just after six-thirty the night before, meaning she had read for over five hours.

  “Well, yes. We started with Harry Potter, then decided that Fudge was a more interesting story. We added Shadow and Frightful to create a new and exciting adventure. Apparently Frightful can fly at the speed of light,” she said, reaching for her coat and purse.

  Andrew was still sleeping when Sue left, so I made myself comfortable and set out to read a People magazine I had pilfered from the lobby.

  When Andrew woke up, he was clearly upset that I had replaced her at his side. “Hey, Mom,” a tired voice said from under the covers, “I was thinking you might want to go to University Village. You could shop and stuff. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

  This sounded fishy to me. When had he ever thought to suggest something that I might like to do? “Thanks, but I’m happy here. I’ve got a juicy magazine,” I said.

  I flashed him a picture of Johnny Depp, heartbroken after his latest break-up. He wasn’t impressed. “I really need some private time. And by the way, would you please leave me your phone?”

  Now I was really curious. I couldn’t imagine what he had planned. Sunshine bathed the room and I looked longingly at the scrap of Lake Washington we could see from our window. Maybe a walk would do me good?

  “Okay, I’ll go for a quick lunch and a little shopping,” I told him, then reluctantly handed him my phone.

  Two hours later, I came back refreshed. The door to our room was ajar, and my son, who can multi-task better than anyone I know, was propped up in bed with his Calvin & Hobbes: Attack of the Killer Snow Goons book draped across his lap. Stuffed Frightful was squashed under one arm and my iPhone was perched on a pillow next to him. The soothing sound of Sue’s voice spilled out of the phone, filling the room.

  He glanced up and saw me. “Oops! Gotta go,” he said, abruptly clicking off the phone.

  I gave him the squinty eye. “How did that private time work out for you?”

  I was met with a sheepish grin and a request for a nap. I wanted to be mad at him, but truthfully, I admired his tenacity and his scheming. It had been a long time since I had seen that side of his personality.

  Andrew fell asleep immediately, leaving me to my thoughts. I made a pillow out of my coat and planned to check my messages. I don’t think I even made it past the first message before the phone dropped on my chest and I quickly entered one of my Technicolor dreams…

  In a lake again, this time Lake Washington, the lake I drove across every day on my way to and from the hospital. The surface was choppy, whitecaps beat the cement bulkhead of the bridge and sheets of spray slammed onto the deck. I stood at the bottom of that massive lake, somehow understanding that this time the water was feeding me, nourishing my mangled heart, bringing me life. I allowed the water to wash around me and through me and, eventually, I became the water, and was carried into the ocean. I flowed through creeks and streams and back into the lake of my dreams. I buoyed the woman on the raft, sending her into the world armored with the things she would need to keep her safe. I lapped at her feet as she sat with her two friends, wondering for the first time who they really were.

  I woke from that mid-day slumber with a need to pray, to talk to someone or something that would listen to the sound of my weary heart. And when I did, I felt a feeling of lightness I hadn’t felt in years. For years, the fear of losing what I treasured most had attached itself to me like a piggy-back rider, making me carry its indeterminable weight with me wherever I went. Those were dark days, as deep as an indigo night. Even when I ventured into the light, I could hardly see, squinting until my eyes were mere slits in my scrunched face. But little by little, I had chipped away at the fear, shedding some of its awful weight. I left it in ditches, in dark corners, and at the edge of the lake. I watched it tumble down through the water, tangle in the weeds, catching in one of the magical trees to finally be swept away in a current that came from nowhere.

  With my eyes still closed, I sensed Andrew moving in his bed. I heard the cruk-cruk-cruk of a chicken, and the scratchy sound of Hannah’s hand near the microphone as she adjusted Jon’s iPad. Then I heard Andrew’s voice:

  “We’re coming home soon, Frightful.”

  Chapter 24

  The next five days were a cascade of activity as we began the countdown to Day Zero. The process of killing off Andrew’s immune system with chemotherapy had been brutal, leaving Jon and me to float through our days and sleepless nights, numb, yet deeply aware of the magnitude of our decision. After ten years, we had finally reached this moment. With no other options, we desperately held on to a flicker of hope, knowing something momentous was happening, understanding our lives would never be the same.

  Day Zero: 4:10 a.m.

  Something woke me up in the middle of the night. A charged energy and feeling of anticipation hovered over the room. It was Transplant Day.

  I sat up gingerly in my narrow bed, carefully avoiding the wooden bars that had been digging into my hips all night. Andrew groaned, rolled over, and threw up. Five solid days of chemo and barf made my own stomach clench and heave each time his did. In order to keep my growing anxiety at bay, I grasped at every bit of scripture I could remember, reciting pieces of hope and courage as a mantra in my mind: I will never leave you…I will be with you wherever you go…I am strong when you are weak…I have plans to give you hope and a future…I am close to you when you are brokenhearted…you are not alone.

  My cell phone buzzed and I groped for it under the blanket. It was a text from Jon: On our way. All good. Attached to the message was a photo
of a sleepy-eyed Hannah, wrapped in her favorite quilt. She was due to arrive in an hour for surgery to harvest the marrow she would be donating to her brother. Although fifteen, Hannah still felt like my affectionate little girl sitting on my lap, leaving butterfly kisses on my cheek, whispering, “I love my Mommy” into my hair. I ached to be with her, but I couldn’t be in two places at once.

  Andrew rolled over again, knocking over a stack of comics and the already full barf bucket.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, knowing it was a ridiculous question.

  “Like a dirty rotten potato,” he mumbled from beneath the blanket.

  It had been a miserable night. The pain, nausea, and vomiting had been a constant companion, and the new cocktail of poisons compounded the problem, making the level of misery unbearable for everyone involved. After a few moments, he fell back asleep, and I mustered the courage to slip out to the bathroom.

  Avoiding the crash cart on the way in, I bumped into our nurse. “The EMT’s will be here to take him to the University for radiation within the hour,” she said.

  I will never leave you…I will be with you wherever you go…you are not alone.

  When I finished untangling my hair, I saw the door crack open and Julie crept into the room. She had flown in from Arizona the night before to stay at the house with Jon and Hannah. “How did it go last night?” she asked.

  One look at my face told her what she needed to know. She handed me her cup of coffee and grabbed me in a tight hug. I was so glad to see her, and I burst into tears.

  My phone buzzed again with another text from Jon: Arrived. Being prepped for surgery. We are fine.

  Getting ready to go, I texted back.

  I could hear the EMT’s talking in the hall, waiting to take Andrew to his first of two TBI (Total Body Radiation) treatments at the University of Washington Hospital.

  “Radiation from eyeballs to toes,” Jon and I had crudely joked the week before after a three-day stint of no sleep. The radiation would kill any remaining Trisomy 8 cells lingering in his bone marrow after the chemotherapy had done its work. It would also kill just about everything else.