He was home.
For a brief moment, his throat felt tight, as his eyes swept over the beautiful seaside manor he had purchased with his own hard-earned fortune and the picturesque ocean landscape that served as its backdrop. He felt like Gilligan, finally home after decades of syndicated episodes spent on an uncharted desert isle. Only Nick had been stranded in a hospital instead, and it had only been two weeks. And, of course, there was no coconut radio or sexy movie star named Ginger... then again, Claire was a redhead, so maybe she could substitute.
Either way, he was home at last, back to his own little slice of heaven after half a month of hell. But of course, not everything was perfect, and there were little reminders of this everywhere, from the ramp that had been installed on part of the steps leading to the front door, to the newly rented wheelchair and crutches that Kevin and Howie were unloading from the back of Nick’s Durango.
“Jesus,” Nick heard Kevin glanced back just in time to see AJ whip his rented BMW into Nick’s driveway practically on two wheels. Killing the engine, AJ flung open the driver’s side and bounced out, while a rather white-looking Brian slid out of the passenger side.
“AJ, if you ever drive like that with Nick in the car while you’re here, you’re a dead man,” Kevin muttered severely, as AJ sauntered on past him.
“Hey, if you’re gonna drive a car like that, you gotta drive it fast,” Nick called from the backseat, grinning at the annoyed expression on Kevin’s face. “Is somebody gonna help me out here, or do I gotta get myself out?”
“Oh, sorry, Nick.” Kevin and Howie were quick to come to his assistance, helping him out of the backseat. Brian appeared with the wheelchair they had rented before Nick had been discharged and parked it beside the Durango, locking the wheels into place.
“I don’t need that,” Nick said with a grimace when he saw it. “Where’s my crutches?”
“No, Nick, just get in the chair. You haven’t used crutches outside yet, and you haven’t been up stairs on them, and the last thing we want is for you to trip and fall,” Kevin reasoned. Knowing better than to argue, Nick sighed and let Kevin and Howie help him lower himself down into the wheelchair. Unlocking the wheels again, Howie pushed him down the walkway that led to the porch, up the newly-built ramp, and into the house.
The inside of the house was dim and cool, a stark contrast to the bright, sunny warmth of the mid-April day outside. Nick looked all around the foyer, taking in every detail, feeling, strangely, as if he were returning to a place he hadn’t been to since childhood. It had only been two weeks, but in those two weeks, he felt he’d aged considerably. So maybe the feeling wasn’t so strange after all.
He noticed the ocean landscape painting hanging in its usual spot on the wall and drew in a breath, remembering the scent of the sea. “Will you take me out back?” he asked, as Howie started to guide the wheelchair into the only bedroom on the main level of the house, which the guys had dubbed Nick’s room until he could navigate the stairs easily on his own.
“Oh... sure, Nicky,” Howie replied and instead pushed the wheelchair through to the back of the house and outside again, where the sun beat down, and the heat rose off of the patio. The aquamarine water of the in-ground pool nestled a few yards away glistened invitingly, but Nick’s eyes drifted past it, past the large patio and deck area, past the green grass which faded to light, gleaming sand, as the lawn merged with the beach... his eyes looked even further than the sand, focusing on the vast expanse of rippling blue water beyond it. Watching as the waves gently lapped against the beach, he longed to run along the water’s edge, his bare feet leaving prints in the wet sand, the water sloshing around his ankles as it washed the prints away.
But obviously, that just wasn’t feasible, so he would have to settle for looking instead... looking and listening and smelling... taking in the whole beautiful scene around him.
“Where do you want to sit, somewhere in the shade?” asked Howie, looking around the sun-drenched patio for a cool refuge from the eighty-degree heat.
“Nah, anywhere is fine,” said Nick. “I like being out in the sun.” It was probably not the best thing for him; he had been warned about exposure to the sun while receiving his radiation treatments. But he had finished radiation almost a month ago and hadn’t even been outside, let alone in the sun, in two weeks. Surely a little sunlight couldn’t hurt.
“Okay,” shrugged Howie, parking the wheelchair in a spot toward the edge of the patio that offered a nice view of the beach and the gulf. “You, uh... you want me to hang here with you, or would you rather be alone?” he asked carefully.
Nick smiled; good old Howie, he knew exactly what Nick wanted and needed. “I think I wanna be alone for a little bit. Thanks, Howie,” he said gratefully.
“No problem, kiddo.” Howie squeezed Nick’s shoulder affectionately. “I’ll come back out in a little while to check on you. We’ll be right inside, so call if you need anything or want to come back in.”
“I’m not totally helpless; I’m sure I can manage wheeling myself around in this thing,” said Nick with a playful roll of his eyes. “Besides, I don’t really need this thing anyway, I can walk...”
“What, you don’t like having us chauffeur you around?” Howie teased. “And you can’t walk if you don’t have your crutches, by the way, and I think Kev hid those so you wouldn’t trip on them and fall flat on your face first thing.”
Nick let out a derisive snort, yearning for the day when he would be able to get around without the wheelchair or the crutches. That won’t be anytime soon though, he thought despondently, his eyes falling to rest on the empty leg of his shorts, which were long and baggy enough to hide his stump.
After nearly a week in the IPOP that had been put on him, he had graduated to taking tiny steps between the set of parallel bars, leaning heavily on the bars to take some of the weight off of his still-healing residual limb. But just when he was starting to grow accustomed to that, the IPOP had come off, and the sutures had come out. The bulky cast that had covered his stump had been replaced with a shrinker, a tight-fitting “sock” that protected the stump and reduced swelling. Though this made the stump much lighter, it also made it feel quite unprotected. It was healing well, but was still tender, and Nick was afraid of hurting it. Without the IPOP, he was left fully dependant on crutches or a wheelchair (which Susan had insisted he rent for the time being) until he got his preparatory prosthesis, the next level up in artificial legs, which he would be measured for in just under a week.
In the meantime, he had scheduled physical therapy sessions at the hospital with Susan for two hours a day, three days a week. And in another month, he’d be making daily trips to the hospital...
A queasy sensation gripped his stomach as he recalled the conversation he’d had with Dr. Kingsbury the day before his discharge. He’d been glad to see her when she had stopped by to check up on him, but the feeling had faded fast as soon as the initial small talk was over and the real conversation began...
“Nick, I know you’re probably not going to like this, but we need to go over an option that I think you should consider,” Dr. Kingsbury began.
Though it was nice to hear the word ‘option’ come out of her mouth and not be clumped together with scary phrases such as “last resort” and “amputation,” her tone told him that, indeed, he was probably not going like this “option” he was supposed to consider.
“Wh-what’s the option?” he asked tentatively.
“Another course of chemotherapy,” answered the doctor.
Nick’s mouth dropped open – his assumption had been correct; he wasn’t liking this option one bit. “More chemo?!” he cried, his voice rising. “But... wh-why would I need more chemo? The cancer was in my leg, and my leg’s gone, so what’s the point of chemo?”
“It’s just a precautionary measure. Although your scans have been clean, there’s always the possibility that some cancer cells could have migrated from the tumor in your leg to other parts of your body. The reason you have to go through the bone marrow aspirations and chest x-rays is because Ewing’s likes to spread, and two of the first places it will go to are the bone marrow and the lungs. If even a few cells escaped, they could hide out there and start reproducing, and then you’ve got metastasis – spreading.”
“But you said the scans were clean!” protested Nick in confusion.
“They are, as far as we can tell, but the scans can’t pick up every trace of cancer... like I said, if a few cells escaped, it could be months before they built up enough to the point of being detectable. What chemo would do is hopefully hunt out any refugee cancer cells and kill them before they had a chance to do any damage.”
“But what if there aren’t any more cancer cells?” Nick asked desperately. “Then the chemo would be for nothing, right? It would just make me sick without helping anything!”
“That’s right,” Dr. Kingsbury nodded seriously, “and that’s why some patients decide against adjuvant chemotherapy – chemo after surgery. This isn’t something you have to do at all, Nick. It’s just an option that I think you should at least consider.”
“Well... well, do you think I should do it?” Nick looked up and into her eyes, dreading the thought of more chemotherapy, yet knowing there must be a reason for her to bring it up.
Dr. Kingsbury pursed her lips. “In your case, the risk of the cancer having spread is fairly low, and chances are, it won’t reappear. But there’s still the chance it could, and if we didn’t catch it in time, it could cause problems. I know you don’t want to go through another course of chemo, and I don’t blame you one bit, but it could potentially mean the difference between a cure and a reoccurrence.”
A tingle ran through Nick’s body at the word “cure.” It was a word he’d rarely heard come out of his doctor’s mouth, and hearing it now gave him hope. Hope that this year-long nightmare would soon end, that as soon as his rehabilitation was complete, he’d be able to walk away from all of this and never look back.
But, of course, Dr. Kingsbury’s “cure” went along with another word, a word that Nick hated. Chemo. How could she ask him to even consider that hellish treatment again, especially now? It was like kicking him when he was down.
“You’ve been through so much, Nick,” Dr. Kingsbury said softly, voicing Nick’s thoughts, “and I know this is the last thing you want to think about now. But picture it as a kind of insurance, a way to make almost absolutely sure the cancer won’t come back. And I say ‘almost absolutely’ because in medicine, nothing is absolute... but I know the statistics, and it’s a proven fact that receiving chemotherapy after surgery ups the survival rates.”
“So you think I should do it,” Nick said flatly. It was not a question, but a statement. She’d made her point clear.
“I think it would be wise,” answered Dr. Kingsbury with a short nod. Nick sighed. “It’s not something you have to decide right away,” the doctor went on quickly. “Even if you decide you want to do it, you probably won’t start for another month or so. After major surgery, your blood counts can be a little out of whack and will need to get back to normal before you can go on chemo. Besides, I’d like to give you a head start on your rehabilitation first before we add chemo to the equation.”
Nick nodded. “I’ll think about it...”
But by the end of that day, he’d made up his mind. He was going ahead with the chemo.
To say the choice had been solely his would be a lie, for the other guys had factored into it as well. After hearing the news, they’d all urged him to go through with it, assuring him that a few more months of chemo were a small price to pay if the treatment bought him more time and returned him to good health. Yeah, but you’re not the ones who have to actually go through it, he’d thought sullenly. But in the end, he’d had Dr. Kingsbury paged and told her that he’d made his decision.
He had known he’d be going home the next day, and they’d agreed that he would start chemo a month from then, on May eighteenth, a Tuesday. He would come to the hospital for treatments three times a week, rather than having a continuous cycle of chemo delivered through another catheter in his chest. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays would be spent getting chemo and then dealing with the immediate after-effects, while Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays would mean going to the hospital for physical therapy. This left Sunday as his only free day, and the thought of all the treatments and rehabilitation was depressing. Yet if it all paid off, a hellish summer would mean a much better fall, winter, and beyond. It would, as the guys had assured him, be a small price to pay.
Still, the months ahead loomed before him like storm clouds on the horizon, and it was hard not to feel overwhelmed. He tried to focus on the present, on the here and now, not on the next day, or the next week, or the next month. Right now, he was home, surrounded by the people he loved, and that was enough to make him count his blessings.
Brian and Kevin would be there for a few more days to help Nick get settled in, and then they would be leaving, each heading home to the respective families they had neglected for the past two weeks. But AJ and Howie would be staying.
It had become very clear that Nick was not going to be able to live on his own yet, and the hospital refused to discharge him unless they were sure he had help at home. AJ and Howie were the obvious choices, as the two other Backstreet Boys who did not have families of their own elsewhere, and naturally, neither one had protested. (“Don’t expect me to cut off my own leg in support of you though,” AJ had joked, running a hand over his re-grown head of hair.) The two men had made plans to move in, while Kevin and Brian took care of making necessary changes to the house, such as moving Nick’s bedroom downstairs.
All four of the guys had also been involved in holding a press conference to inform the public about the latest with Nick. The conference had been open to select members of the press only and was not broadcast on TV, though of course the news was all over the music and entertainment channels, and according to Nick’s publicist, Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer were already fighting to get the first interview with Nick himself.
But Nick wasn’t ready to be interviewed and doubted he would be for a long time. For now, he was content to sit there, docilely watching the waves roll onto the beach, content to seclude himself in the safety and solace of his own home and focus on simply getting through the next few months’ trials. And that he would do, one day at a time.
Or as Susan had told him again and again during those first few frustrating therapy sessions, one step at a time.
***
