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Nick


Six months after my stem cell transplant, I was finally starting to look and feel more like my old self again.

The stem cells had done their job, replacing the cells that were wiped out by the chemo, so that my blood counts were back to normal, and my immune system was working again. I had no more restrictions on what I could eat or where I could go, and I had the energy to do the things I wanted to, as long as I paced myself.

Along with working on my album, I’d been working on my body, trying to get back into the kind of shape I’d been in before I got cancer. I ate healthy, went to the gym when I felt up to it, and tried to take care of myself. It was a long, slow process, but I could feel myself getting stronger every day, as I built up the muscle tone I’d lost lying around in the hospital. My hair had started growing back, and I was feeling more confident about way I looked.

In mid-March, I posed for a photo shoot for my solo album’s cover art. We kept the pictures simple: me in front of a white background, looking into the camera; me on the beach, looking serious and reflective; me in my knit cap, looking… I don’t know, like a guy who’s been through something traumatic and lived to tell the tale, I guess. That was how I was starting to think of myself: as a survivor.

I was actually looking forward to going to Cary’s Relay for Life again in the summer, so that I could wear one of those purple shirts with pride. Maybe I wouldn’t shout it from the rooftops, but I wouldn’t hide it anymore, either. I’d had cancer, and I’d survived it.

So far.

The thing about cancer is, it’s not that simple or straight forward. It’s not like a race, where there’s a certain route to run and an end in sight. There’s no finish line, unless you count death. You can put the disease behind you, but even then, you still keep running and hope it doesn’t catch up. Everyone’s journey is different; for some, it’s a sprint, and for others, it turns out to be a marathon. Sometimes it’s uphill, sometimes it’s down, and sometimes, even when everything seems to be going smoothly, you run into hurdles that you’ve got to get over. And through it all, you’re tired and out of breath, your body aches, and sometimes, you just feel like giving up, like falling down and dying, right there in the middle of the road.

I didn’t want to die, but some days, it was still hard just to get out of bed in the morning. The fatigue wasn’t as bad, but I still got tired easily, and sometimes I woke up with a splitting headache, feeling like I’d hardly slept. Most of the bone pain I’d suffered through after the transplant had gone away, but my back had been bothering me for over a month. I figured I’d pulled something and liked to blame it on Cary trying to get me to swing dance on Valentine’s Day, but she claimed I was just pushing myself too hard in the gym and got on my case about taking it easy.

“Is your back still sore?” she asked that morning, when I hobbled into the kitchen for breakfast, rubbing my lower back.

I yawned and reached for the ceiling, trying to stretch out my spine and loosen up the muscles back there. I was always stiff and sore in the morning, but once I got going, the kinks usually worked themselves out. “Yeah, a little. I’m fine, though.”

She pursed her lips together, giving me the kind of look that told me she thought I should get it checked out, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. I had gone to a chiropractor at the beginning of the month, and he hadn’t seemed too concerned, either. He couldn’t find anything that felt out of place and, like Cary, told me I’d probably just strained a muscle in my efforts to get back in shape. He’d poked and popped my back, but the visit hadn’t really helped much.

Sometimes I wondered if these aches and pains weren’t side effects from cancer treatments or working out too much, but just the natural signs of getting older. After all, I’d turned thirty-one in January; I was still young, but I wasn’t a kid anymore. My body had been through hell in the last year, and I didn’t blame it for taking longer to recover than it used to.

“Just make sure you ask Dr. Subramanien about it when you see her today, okay? Please? For me?” Cary gave me a pleading look, which I returned with a big, cheesy grin.

“You got it, babe. I’ll be sure to mention it.”

“Good. Thank you.” She smiled back, but she still looked like she might not believe me. I would ask, though; I wasn’t stupid.

I was going in to the outpatient clinic for my six-month follow-up, which meant another round of tests like I’d had back in December, to make sure my cancer was still in remission. I’d gotten a clean bill of health back then, so I wasn’t worried, but I knew it wouldn’t be wise to hide any complaints that might be signs of a problem. Still, I was pretty sure Cary was just being neurotic. The back pain couldn’t be from cancer; I’d had completely different symptoms before my diagnosis, and I wasn’t experiencing any of those things now – no cough or shortness of breath, no fevers or night sweats, and no chest pain. I felt better that I had in months.

Still, I grunted in pain as I bent over to grab an orange out of the fridge, and Cary noticed. “You’ve got to get this taken care of,” she said softly, coming up behind me and placing her hand on the small of my back. While I stood at the counter, peeling my orange, she stayed behind me and massaged my back, kneading up and down along my spine with the heels of her hands. It sort of hurt, but it felt good, too, like she was working out all the tension.

“Mm…” I groaned, closing my eyes. “You’re amazing, you know that?” I turned around and took her in my arms, kissing her. I didn’t know how I’d ever survived on my own without her, especially when I was sick. Even though she was working now, she still cooked dinner every night, kept the condo clean, and kept me satisfied in bed. She was like the perfect wife, without the marriage certificate, and I loved her that way.

I knew she loved me, too. She’d told me so, once, on Valentine’s Day, and not again since then, but I didn’t need her to say it, and I didn’t feel pressed to say the words to her. Our relationship had never been “by the book,” so why should we have to define it? We were happy together, and that was what mattered.

“Hm… well… I should probably go be amazing at work,” Cary said, craning her neck to check the clock on the microwave behind me. “I’m sorry I can’t come with you today…”

“It’s no big deal. I’ve been through this before on my own; I know the drill.” If I was being honest, I wished she was coming to the appointment with me; it was going to be a long, boring day, most of it spent waiting, and it would have been nice to have her around to help pass the time and take my mind off the tests I had to have done, some of which were going to suck. But I understood: she hadn’t been working long at her new job and wouldn’t feel right asking for a day off yet.

“Well, call me if anything comes up, if you need me or anything.”

I nodded, but I knew I wouldn’t have any reason to call her. “Everything’ll be fine,” I assured her, as she picked up her pink medical bag and headed out the door. Once she had left for work, I finished my breakfast and went back to the bedroom to get dressed for my fun-filled day of medical testing.

***

When I got to the cancer clinic, a nurse took me right back. “You’ve put on some weight since your last visit!” she exclaimed when she got me on the scale. She made it sound like a huge accomplishment. It was nice to be praised for gaining weight, instead of criticized for it.

“All solid muscle,” I replied with a smirk, flexing my bicep for her.

She laughed and led me back to an exam room, where she took my vitals and gave me a gown to put on. “Dr. Subramanien will be in to see you in a few minutes,” she promised and then left me alone to change.

Dr. Submarine didn’t keep me waiting long. When she walked into the room, I noticed she was wearing a bright yellow blouse under her white coat, and I thought, Yellow Submarine. I laughed inside at my own joke and struggled to keep a straight face when she said hello and asked how I was doing.

“I’m good,” I said. “Been feeling a lot better lately. I’ve gotten back to work; I’m releasing a solo album soon, my first one in over eight years.”

“That’s nice. Congratulations,” she replied, sort of absently. “Can you lie back, please?”

I stretched out on the exam table and shut up while she stuck her stethoscope down the front of my gown to listen to my heart and lungs. I should have known she’d be all business.

“Any problems with your port?”

“No. Hey, when can I get that thing taken out? I mean, I don’t need it anymore, right?” It would come in handy for the blood draw that I knew was coming, but it was pretty useless otherwise; I hadn’t gotten chemo through the port in six months.

Dr. Submarine gave me a knowing smile. “Let’s see how your tests turn out, and if everything looks clear, we can set up an appointment to remove it.”

“Awesome.” The port really hadn’t been that big of a deal, but it would still be a relief to get rid of it. I would always have a little scar on my chest from it, but at least I wouldn’t have a weird lump under my skin anymore.

“Have you had any symptoms or side effects you’re concerned about?” Dr. Submarine asked, as she poked and prodded me, feeling for swollen lymph nodes, I guess.

“No…” I started to say, then remembered my promise to Cary that morning. “Well, except for my back. I’ve been having this pain in my lower back, but I think I just pulled a muscle or something. I’ve been working out a lot, trying to get back into shape.”

“Why don’t you sit up, and I’ll take a look?”

I sat up again, shivering a little as her hands opened the back of the gown and touched my bare skin. “I saw a chiropractor a few weeks ago, but he didn’t help much,” I added, as she felt up and down my spine.

“Well, I haven’t felt anything out of the ordinary, but I’ll order a bone scan along with your usual work-up. It may show us the cause of your back pain.”

I didn’t ask what she thought that cause could be, but in the back of my mind, it occurred to me that a bone scan didn’t sound like a diagnostic test for a muscle strain.

As I was shuttled around the clinic for all the scans and procedures on the agenda that day, I realized it had been just about a year since I’d gone through all this stuff for the first time. It was crazy to think that, a year ago, I’d come to this clinic without a cancer diagnosis, without a clue of what to expect, and with the feeling that I didn’t belong there. Everyone else was so old, I remembered thinking. Old people got cancer. Sometimes little kids got it, too. But not guys my age, not thirty-year-olds who were in the best shape of their life.

And now, in a weird way, I felt old. World-weary. Wise. I’d seen and done it all before, and I knew what was coming this time. I didn’t get claustrophobic during the CT or PET scans. I didn’t flinch for the spinal tap or the bone marrow biopsy. The blood draw was a cinch, and the bone scan wasn’t bad either. The tests had become routine, old hat to an experienced patient like me, and nothing to stress out about.

Checking into the hospital for all this diagnostic stuff a year ago had been like walking into a dark tunnel, completely blind. It had taken time for my eyes to adjust. But by now, I was almost through the tunnel, and I could see the light at the end, and I knew that if I just kept heading in the right direction, I’d make it out alive. I just might not be the same person I’d been going in.

***

I left the clinic that afternoon without seeing Dr. Submarine again, but her nurse told me she would call in a few days with my test results. As far as I was concerned, no news was good news, so that was fine with me.

When I got home, Cary was in the kitchen, cooking dinner. “Hi!” she said, putting down her spatula and hurrying over. She gave me a kiss on the lips and a tender hug, careful not to hurt my back. She must have known it would be more tender than usual, after getting bone marrow and spinal fluid sucked out for testing. “How’d it go today?”

I shrugged. “It was fine. Same old shit.”

“Did you talk to Dr. Subramanien?”

“About my back? Yeah, I told her. She said she didn’t feel anything out of place, but she made me get a bone scan…” I frowned, remembering the question I hadn’t felt like asking Dr. Submarine. “What does that check for, exactly, a bone scan? Could it show cancer?”

Cary bit down on her bottom lip. “It could…” she said slowly. “I mean, cancer can spread to the bones, and the scan would show if it had. But there are lots of other things that could be causing your back to hurt. It could just be a lasting side effect of the transplant, or it could be something as simple as a pulled muscle or a slipped disc from working out, like you thought. It’s probably nothing, but I’m glad you told her so she could order the test and make sure.”

I nodded, but her confirmation that a bone scan could be used to detect cancer had planted the first seeds of doubt in my mind.

“Why don’t you go lie down for awhile before dinner?” Cary suggested. “I’m making homemade pizza; I thought we could eat in the living room tonight, so you can stretch out on the couch.”

“Yeah, okay…”

I wandered back to my bedroom and lay facedown on the bed, burying my head in my pillow. It felt good to be lying flat; I had a headache again, probably from the spinal tap. At least I didn’t have anywhere to be that night; I could take it easy and would feel better by morning. It wasn’t like all those times on the tour, when I’d had to lie flat in my bunk on the bus or on a bed in some strange hotel room after Cary had injected chemo into my spine. How I’d made it through all that, I had no idea. I couldn’t imagine doing it now, or ever again.

I closed my eyes and was just started to doze off when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. I boosted myself up onto my elbows, grimacing at the pain in my back, and rolled over to dig out my phone. I squinted down at the caller ID, a little disoriented, and my stomach lurched as I saw the words UCLA Santa Monica flashing under the number for the cancer clinic that I had programmed into my phone. I pressed the button to answer the call and sat up, raising the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

“Hello, Nick? This is Dr. Subramanien,” came my doctor’s soft, accented voice.

“Hey, what’s up, Doc?” I replied, as casually as I could, but this time, I wasn’t laughing inside. My heart was pounding. Why was she calling me now, when the nurse had said it would take a few days?

“I’ve gotten back some of your test results, and I’d like to meet with you in person to go over them. Are you able to come back to the clinic this evening, or would you rather we set up an appointment for tomorrow?”

I swallowed hard. “Tonight? But…” I looked over at the clock by my bed; it was way past five. “…isn’t the clinic closed by now?”

“Yes, but I’m still here in my office. I’ll wait for you, if you’d like to come in now.”

Maybe she always works after hours, I tried to reassure myself, but it didn’t work. She had stayed late for me. That could only mean one thing…

“It’s important,” she added gently.

“O-okay. Um, I’m on my way.”

I threw down the phone. My mind was racing, and my heart was beating even faster. I sat there on the edge of my bed for a few seconds, taking slow, shuddering breaths and trying to collect my thoughts. They all led to the same conclusion.

…I was about to get bad news.

***
Chapter End Notes:
Sorry for the cliffhanger! I promise not to leave you hanging long. Thanks for reading and reviewing!