I Want to Live

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “How are you doing, Dawn?”

  She tried to speak but couldn’t form words. Dr. Singh patted her arm. “The anesthesiologist will give you a few puffs of gas, and you will go to sleep. When you wake up, you will be back in your room. You’re going to be just fine.”

  Dawn attempted to nod, but her head lolled to one side. Another masked doctor’s face appeared. He smiled and slipped a rubber mask over her nose and mouth. He said, “Breathe deeply.” She took two deep breaths and drifted off into a gray fog.

  * * * * *

  Dawn felt sore all over. Every inch of her body hurt. She moaned and instantly saw her parents and Rob next to her bed.

  “Hi, Squirt. We thought you were going to sleep all day.”

  “Time?”

  “Three o’clock.”

  A bag of blood hung from a stand next to her bed and dripped into a tube through a needle inserted in her arm. She looked at it curiously.

  “Your red blood count was a little low,” Rob explained. “So they’re giving you a fresh supply. This place would be vampire heaven,” he joked. His tone turned more serious. “You did real well, Dawn. Dr. Singh tells me that if I do half as well for my operation, he’ll put a gold star on my chart.”

  She wanted to smile. “Katie . . . give . . . shot?”

  Rob’s face assumed a pained expression. “She used me for a dart board. And enjoyed it, I might add. But I’m tough. I can take it. Go back to sleep, and we’ll see you in the morning.”

  Obediently, she closed her eyes and slept. When Dawn awoke again, Katie was taking her blood pressure. “Good morning. How do you feel?”

  Dawn groaned. “My hip’s sore.”

  “That’s where they removed the marrow,” Katie said. “We’ll let you rest this morning, but you’re scheduled for X-ray and skin testing this afternoon to check out how your immune system is working.”

  “There are so many tests . . .”

  “They’re all necessary, honey.” Katie’s blue eyes were kind. “Phase two is the immune suppressant drugs and transplant. We want that to be successful. But good news—between phases, you can check out of the hospital for a few hours.”

  “I can?” Dawn felt a bubble of excitement.

  “Your family can take you out for dinner right before you go into isolation.”

  Anticipation filled her. Outside the hospital. It would be like getting out of prison. Then another thought occurred. Didn’t they give condemned prisoners a last meal?

  * * * * *

  Just like Katie had said, Dawn was allowed to check out of the hospital with her family for an evening two days before the transplant operation. Mr. Rochelle took them to the finest restaurant in the city. Silverware gleamed, gold-rimmed china shone, and crystal water goblets reflected sparkles of light from candles set on tables. Waiters were dressed in black tuxedos, and one made a fancy caesar salad at their table, grinding pepper from a tall pepper mill.

  The food tasted delicious, and as she glanced around the table at her parents and brother, Dawn wished she had the words to tell them how much they meant to her. She nibbled on a breast of chicken smothered in some French sauce and longed for the night to last forever. But the world of violin music and fresh flowers and beautiful food would be gone in a few hours. Then she would be locked in a world of sterility and antiseptic walls.

  When they returned to the hospital, Dawn asked Rob, “Can we sit out here on the wall for a few minutes? The night’s so beautiful, and it’s hard to go back inside. I’m not positive I’ll be able to come out again.”

  He lifted her up on the low brick decorative wall, then boosted himself up next to her. “In six weeks, you’ll walk straight out that door,” he said with determination. “There’s a whole team of medical geniuses in there devoted to nothing but your cure.”

  “I’m scared, Rob.”

  “Me, too. But if anyone can do it, you can.”

  Dawn took deep breaths and stared straight up at the heavens. “The stars make me feel sort of unimportant. Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like to touch them?”

  “You’re more important than all those stars.”

  “For everything there is a season . . . ,” she quoted from the page in the Bible she’d found in Sandy’s keepsakes. “How much longer is my season, Rob?”

  He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “If my bone marrow’s any good, you’ll have a hundred seasons.”

  “I’m not afraid of dying. It’s just that I don’t want to yet.”

  “Hey, don’t talk that way. You’re going to make it.”

  Tomorrow, Dawn thought to herself. Tomorrow she would begin phase two of her treatment. Once started, she would be committed to the transplant and the cure. After tomorrow, there was no turning back.

  Twelve

  DAWN began her immune suppressant drugs with five large capsules containing thirty-four smaller pills. In the afternoon, a special team scrubbed down her room to make it sterile. She watched the procedure from the doorway as disinfectants and germ killers were sprayed and rubbed into every corner and across every surface. Once back inside the room, she perched on her hospital bed, waiting, as they replaced the equipment after first passing it under an ultra-violet light.

  “Kills all the little germs and viruses that insist on hanging around,” Katie quipped from behind the green surgical mask covering her mouth.

  “Will everyone have to dress like that to visit me?” Dawn asked. Katie’s small body seemed lost in the green gown. A cap, gloves, and special coverings for her shoes made her look like an escapee from an operating room.

  “Absolutely,” Katie said. “Gowning out is hard for visitors, but it’s important. We don’t want any bad old germs hitching a ride into this sterile environment. Outside your door is a sign that says: ISOLATION. It means it. But don’t worry. You’ll see plenty of people. And your TV set is safe. You can ‘see the world’ every time you turn it on.”

  Dawn stuck out her lower lip. “TV and books. What a drag!”

  “You’re forgetting your exercise bike,” Katie pointed to the contraption near a wall. “You can adjust the tension on the handlebars, and you’ll feel as if you’re pedaling up the sides of mountains. And don’t forget all the wonderful food we’ll be serving you.”

  A half-smile lifted the corner of Dawn’s mouth. “I’m already feeling a bit sick to my stomach from the drugs. The idea of eating really turns me off.” She picked at the bed-sheets stretching across her lap, hating to ask the question on her mind. “Will there be any other side effects? Will I lose my hair again?”

  Katie puckered her mouth, then nodded. “Yes, honey. You’ll lose your hair again.”

  Tears welled up in Dawn’s eyes. She struggled to fight them down. I don’t want to cry. I don’t!

  “It’s just that it took so long to grow. . . I was hoping I wouldn’t lose my hair again.”

  Katie patted her arm. “Hair grows. And so will your brother’s bone marrow once we get it in you. Both will grow together.”

  What does it matter? Dawn thought. Who cared if she got bloated and bald? School, camp, Mike, and Jake seemed a lifetime away. Dawn curled up into a ball and squeezed her eyes shut to keep the tears inside.

  The hours and days passed in a haze for Dawn. They gave her pills and dripped concoctions into her veins that made her sick, and then disoriented. She couldn’t keep her wits long enough to carry on a conversation on some days. She exercised and watched TV and worked puzzles until the medications made her vision blur. She wanted her family with her, then wanted everybody to leave her alone. She got sick, so sick they had to begin feeding her through tubes because nothing would stay down. She saw her legs and hands swell with retained fluids.

  They attached her to machines to measure her heart rate and took chest X-rays and showed her relaxation exercises to practice whenever she was awake. Finally, they took a sample of her bone marrow and pronounced it “knocked out.” The thought was mind-boggling. She w
as defenseless. She was without any of her inborn genetic ability to fight off germs. “But you’re also unable to fight off Rob’s bone marrow,” Katie reminded her.

  The day before the transplant, they moved more sterile equipment into the room. “In case anything happens,” Dr. Singh told her. She didn’t want to consider what might happen. That night Rob came up to visit. He had already checked into the hospital for his early morning operation to remove his bone marrow.

  “You look pale,” she chided. “Worried about that shot they’re going to give you?”

  His eyes crinkled. “They sent a nurse who weighed two hundred pounds and stood six-foot-two to give me my last shot.”

  “Gee, the male nurses are real gentle with me.”

  “What male nurse?”

  She attempted to giggle. “Is Darcy going to wait with Mom and Dad during your operation?”

  Rob’s gaze darted around the room. “No. I told her I’d call when I felt like talking. No use for her to sit around all day since I’ll be zonked out most of the time.”

  Dawn studied him, wishing her mind was sharper. He seemed to be hiding something, but she felt too tired to dwell on it. “Thanks, Rob. Thanks, for doing this for me.”

  “Thanks for letting me do it for you,” he said.

  “Will you come see me as soon as you can?”

  “As soon as they let me.” Their gazes locked, and when he left, Dawn clutched her sheets feeling overwhelmed with gratitude. She hoped Darcy realized how lucky she was to have someone like Rob in her life.

  The next morning, Dawn waited in her room with her mother for the nurses to bring in the marrow, signaling that Rob’s operation was over. “It’s hard not being able to be in two places at once, isn’t it, Mom?”

  Mrs. Rochelle shrugged and thumbed absently through a magazine. “Your father’s with Rob.”

  Dawn grew thoughtful, staring up at the ceiling. Her mind was full of memories of her and Rob as kids. “When I was little, Rob and I watched a western movie on TV together. I still remember it. In the story two boys, one white and one an Indian, became ‘blood brothers.’ They cut their fingers and pressed them together so their blood would mingle. It meant they would forever be friends. Brothers. I asked Rob a bunch of questions about it because I thought it was the coolest idea for sealing friendship that I’d ever seen. I guess this makes him and me more than blood brothers, doesn’t it?”

  Mrs. Rochelle nodded. “I guess it does.”

  At 11:30, physicians dressed in operating gowns and masks arrived with a bag of what looked like red Jell-O. “It’s fifteen-hundred cc’s of bone marrow,” Katie explained. “Forty-five billion cells.” She hooked the bag and its tubing to a metal stand and inserted a needle into one of the tubes protruding from Dawn. Her mother gripped Dawn’s hand, and they watched as the nurse adjusted the drip. “It’ll take almost five hours, so relax. I’ll take your vital signs every fifteen minutes. If you feel itchy or if I see a rash, it may indicate rejection. But we’re only going to think good thoughts.”

  “How’s Rob?”

  “Sleeping like a baby. He’ll be up and around by tomorrow.”

  Dawn stared at the bag for long minutes, feeling a lump swell in her throat. Rob’s bone marrow. For her, it was the gift. She closed her eyes and imagined the red, healthy cells pouring into her body, each prepared to set up a permanent home within her bones.

  * * * * *

  The days flowed past Dawn without measurement. Dawn understood life from the perspective of a guinea pig. She was poked and prodded and tested almost around the clock. Electrodes on her chest sent her heartbeat to a monitor. Its incessant beeping kept her from sleeping. She felt hot and dried out. “You have a fever,” Dr. Singh told her with a shake of his head. It scared her, because the fever could mean rejection.

  They gave her antibiotics, and she broke out in a rash. “Allergic,” the doctor pronounced. She began to swell, and the nurses drained fluid from her tissue. Her chest felt tight and that compounded her fears. They gave her pain medications that made her feel groggy, like she was floating in a sea of taffy. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t think clearly.

  Rob hobbled in, bent over. “Still sore,” he apologized. “Yuck! I feel sixty-years-old. I can barely move, but they say it’ll be better in the next few days. How are you doing?”

  “Tired . . . ” Her mouth felt parched, but at least she could talk. “Your bone marrow’s working hard. They said my white count was up to seven hundred.”

  “It had better work hard.”

  Through puffy, swollen eyelids, she watched him turn his head. Were those tears in his eyes? She didn’t want him to cry for her. “How’s Darcy? Think you’ll be able to stand at the altar by Christmas time?”

  He glanced towards the door. “I’ll be fine in a few days. All I want for Christmas is for you to be home. Maybe we’ll wrap you up and stuff you under the tree.”

  “Wrap me in red paper. Green bow. . . ” Her mind wandered. “Did you make a touchdown in the game last week?”

  “I—I—of course.”

  “That’s good. I want to go home. Help me get out of bed, Rob. I’ll get dressed, and you can drive me home.”

  His hands pushed her down. “No, honey. You can’t leave.”

  She heard the beeping of her heart monitor grow faster. “If you unplug that stupid thing, we could go home.” Her breath came in rapid gasps. Her hands clutched at the front of his gown. “Please . . . take me home.”

  From somewhere, she heard Katie’s voice. “Lie down, Dawn. Please don’t try to get up.”

  Dawn felt more hands on her. Cool hands.

  Hot. Why am I so hot? Why don’t they take off my covers? Turn up the air conditioning? She twisted, hearing snatches of words like “delirious,” “spiking fever,” “infection.” Who were they discussing? Who was sick? She was getting well. Rob’s bone marrow was beginning to function. It was hers now—hers. They couldn’t take it away from her.

  “I’m giving her another pain shot,” she heard Katie say. Numbing waves washed over her. She jerked to escape the mire that sucked her into the bedsheets, but she was held fast, a prisoner of another medication.

  Thirteen

  DEAR Dawn—also known as “Squirt,”

  I’m writing in your diary because you’re too sick to write in it yourself. Don’t worry, I didn’t read any of it, because it’s private. But I know you want to keep a journal about your transplant. So I thought I’d help out.

  First of all, right now you’re really sick with some infection. Actually, there’s more than one infection. Some, Dr. Singh can fight with antibiotics. Others, we were hoping my bone marrow would go after. Believe it or not, the old Rob Rochelle cells are starting to kick in, and the doctors think that if they can clear up these infections, you’ll have an excellent response to the transplant.

  Please get well. We’re all rooting for you, Sis. Your transplant team is super, and they care so much about you. The folks and I hope you know we’re at your bedside around the clock. I have the morning shift . . .

  Rob stopped writing and stared pensively at his sister’s motionless from. He’d been with her since five that morning, refusing to even go out for breakfast. She didn’t resemble his sister in any way. Her face was swollen, and her other features were misshapen and exaggerated by excess fluid. A fine red rash covered her arms and neck. Her hair had fallen out, but Katie had covered her head with a bright pink scarf. It helped, making her look like a toy store doll with fat, rosy cheeks and plump, pouting lips.

  Tubes and wires attached to machines stuck out of her body, also swollen by retained fluid. Why couldn’t she be well? Why couldn’t her doctors find the right combination of drugs and heal her? Hadn’t they said that the transplant seemed “optimistically good”? With a frustrated sigh, Rob shut the diary and slid it into Dawn’s bedside drawer. The uncomfortably hot mask and gown he wore was made worse by the waiting.

  “How’s she doing?�
�� Mrs. Rochelle asked, entering the room while tying the strings of her mask.

  “No change.” Rob said.

  “Your father’s gone to his office. He’ll come to the hospital after supper tonight.”

  “You should get some sleep, Mom. I plan to spend the day here. You know I’ll call if there’s any change.”

  “Has she asked for me?”

  “She’s in and out of consciousness. Doesn’t make much sense when she’s awake. I wish I could do more for her. She keeps asking if you need her for the fitting of her bridesmaid dress.”

  “She doesn’t know about you and Darcy yet?”

  Rob flashed his mother a warning glance. “No. And don’t say anything about it in this room. You know what Dr. Singh said about Dawn being able to hear us. Just because she can’t respond doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what’s going on.” The doctor had told them that noise was the one thing that even comatose patients respond to. Often, Dr. Singh would talk very loudly to Dawn or clap his hands next to her ear. So far, she always responded with a twitch or a moan. He considered it a good sign.

  Mrs. Rochelle reached out and touched Rob’s arm. “I’ll go home in a while. Let me stay with her for right now. Take a drive and get out in the sunshine. Come back around lunch time.”

  Grateful for his mother’s offer, Rob left the room, put his protective gowning in a special trash container, and left the hospital. The bright sunlight made him squint. The heat of late August was already gearing up for another scorching day. He should be back on campus by now. Football practice had begun, and the start of school was only weeks away. He’d talked to his coach. The team understood Rob’s dilemma, but game strategy had to be planned. Rob knew he’d lose his starting position. He rubbed the base of his neck and slid wearily inside his beat-up Toyota.