“You remember I told you about the Dinner Club?” I said. “That group of friends who are going to bring us dinner every other night? It was my friend Kelly’s idea, and she and her husband, Andrew, had organized the whole thing. Tonight is Gabby’s turn.” Seven couples in total were teaming up to deliver our family dinners over the course of the chemotherapy sessions.
“That’s so generous,” Mom said.
“I know. I can’t believe it.” I walked to the basement door. “Before Gabby shows up, I’m just going to send a quick e-mail to some family and friends.” I needed some time alone. I escaped downstairs, turned on my computer and began typing.
Hello, everyone,
I just got home from my very first chemo session and wanted to let you know how it went. I feel good—a little stoned, maybe, but great!
It’s interesting, sitting in a room with everyone in the same situation. Makes you realize you’re not alone—and that there are people who have a lot more to complain about than you. I guess that’s where my positive attitude comes from—everything could be much, much worse!
I’ll keep you posted as much as I can, but that’s all for now. I’m going to catch up on a little Oprah—until the kids wake up, of course!
Talk to you later!
As I’d been typing, I began to feel a little nauseous. Correction: I began to feel incredibly nauseous. I rushed to the bathroom and vomited. A lot. I thought I was never going to stop. Finally I did. I hunched over the sink, trembling, and cleaned myself up. I knew Gabby must have arrived and everyone would wonder where I was, so I climbed up the stairs, clutching the rail the whole way.
“Hey, Gabby!” Once again I plastered a smile on my face.
“Alana! You look great!” She gave me a hug. “How did it go? You seem to be doing well.”
“Thanks, Gabby.” I tried to sound enthused. She was always so kind, I didn’t know if she was being thoughtful or if she truly couldn’t see what I’d been through. “What did you bring?”
“Orzo pasta with grilled veggies and fresh Parmesan cheese. And a salad for you with some of my homemade dressing.”
“That sounds amazing. I hope you didn’t go to too much trouble.”
“No, not at all! I was making dinner anyway, so I just doubled it.”
Charley ran in and grabbed me. “You hungry, sweetie?” I asked after I kissed her. I wasn’t sure I was up for eating anything, but I tried to hide it as best I could. “Gabby cooked us dinner and is staying to eat with us!” She nodded and smiled.
Mom chimed in. “Rudy’s getting hungry, too, Alana.” He was wriggling in her arms.
“Let’s have dinner, then.” We set the table and chatted as we worked, and by the time we sat down, I felt somewhat better. I was happy, and I was famished. Gabby is Italian, and anything she cooks is delicious. Her orzo dish smelled delicious, and I wanted to eat it. I took a few nibbles and listened while Mom, Gabby and Greg got caught up. Suddenly I put the fork down.
“Would you excuse me?” I could barely get the words out as I pushed back my chair, and everyone stared at me in surprise. I barely made it to the bathroom and vomited again. When I felt better, I emerged. Everyone had abandoned the dinner table, and Gabby was heading to the door.
“I’m so sorry, Gabby,” I said. I felt awful, as though I’d ruined the party. “The pasta was so delicious. I’m just not feeling that well.”
“Don’t worry, Alana. It’s not your fault.” She gave me another big hug.
I leaned against the door after she left and smiled wanly at Mom and Greg.
“You okay?” Mom asked.
“I just need to rest a bit.” I sat on the couch.
The kids followed me, but my mother said, “Charley, play with Rudy and let Mommy sleep,” and she and Greg cleaned up.
I managed to relax, but an hour later, as I was trying to get the kids ready for bed, I ran to the master bathroom and vomited again. Shortly after I got there, I heard a knock on the door. It was my mother. I was so sick I couldn’t respond. She opened the door and slipped inside.
“I can’t stop throwing up,” I managed to say.
She pulled my hair back and held it for me. “Maybe you should take more of those pills they gave you for nausea.”
“No, I’m sure it’ll pass. I’ll be fine.” It did pass, but I felt so shaky, I went to lie down again. When I felt a bit better, I called Gabby.
“Thank you so much for the amazing dinner,” I said. “It’s wonderful having food here for everyone so we don’t have to worry about that. And I wanted to apologize. I’m sorry I wasn’t better company.”
“Honestly, don’t worry about it. You’ll eat when you feel better, and if not, I’ll make it for you again sometime. I’m so happy to help.”
Although she dismissed it as no big deal, it was a huge deal to me. “Thank you” was all I could manage to say before hanging up and running for the bathroom again. This time in the midst of it, Greg came in to check on me.
“It’s okay,” I insisted. “Go to bed. I’ll be all right.” He had to work the next morning and there was no point in both of us being up late. So he did and fell asleep. But I couldn’t stop vomiting. I threw up every forty-five minutes, then every half hour. I was in denial, believing it would stop on its own. But by two A.M., I was vomiting every ten minutes.
My mother came upstairs and tiptoed into our bathroom. I was curled around the toilet. I could only glance at her briefly before I began throwing up again, barely able to hold my head up.
“Alana, this is crazy,” she said. She’d been downstairs in the spare room, which was right underneath our bedroom, and could hear everything. “I don’t care what you say. We’re going to the hospital.”
Chapter 13
DO THEY STAY OR DO THEY GO?
Mom practically dragged me to the car. The drive was a blur. Once we got to the hospital, she took charge, and I was admitted quickly. The emergency room was so bright. I just wanted to curl up and die. I heard voices somewhere beside me.
“Get her on saline and an antinauseant.”
I groaned as they hooked me up to yet another IV. I could hear Mom talking.
“How long will it take to work? She’s been throwing up almost constantly.”
“Pretty fast. Once we get her rehydrated, she’ll start feeling better. We’ll give her something to help her sleep, too.”
I was aware that Mom sat down beside me and took my hand. Then whatever they gave me must have started working. I slept until morning, Mom took me home, and I crawled right back into bed. When I woke up later that morning, Mom brought me something to eat.
“It’s just dry toast. I don’t want you to start vomiting again,” she said as she set the tray down.
“What did they give me last night? I feel better, I think,” I said as I cautiously started nibbling the toast.
“Something called Zofran. I asked them about it and they said it’s an extremely effective yet very expensive antinauseant,” she said, watching me carefully. “Most doctors know it works well, but they don’t usually prescribe it because of the cost. And they don’t know immediately if every patient will need it.” She fluffed up a pillow and sat down beside me. “They also gave you some Ativan to help you relax and sleep.”
“Whatever the combination was, it worked. Thankfully.” I drank some water and started on another slice of toast. Mom raised an eyebrow.
“So far, so good,” I said. “Apparently I have expensive taste.”
She smiled.
We were overly optimistic. The vomiting started up again and continued on and off for another forty-eight hours, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad or frequent as it had been the night before. Greg and Mom kept bringing me food, though. They both knew I was determined to maintain my weight, and the whole bout of vomiting had thrown that off. By about the third day after chemo, the nausea started to go away enough that I could begin to eat normally again. And just in time: that day I had to get my Neulasta injection, the first of ei
ght I would need. While the chemotherapy would help rid my body of cancer, it could also lower my white blood cell count. Neulasta would force my bone marrow to produce more of those cells. My mother would be giving me the injections, but a nurse was coming by to demonstrate the procedure to her.
“Here she is!”
The nurse was friendly but efficient, and began unpacking her supplies the minute she came in. “What time of day are you planning to do the injection?” she asked.
“In the afternoon, when my son is down for a nap, so there won’t be any distractions.”
“Any other time would be impossible,” Mom added.
“It’s true. The kids would be either running around or trying to grab the needle while Mom’s injecting it!”
“Whenever you decide to do it,” the nurse said, “just remember to always take the syringe out of the fridge approximately a half hour before you’re ready.” She took the syringe off the kitchen counter. Mom had taken it out of the refrigerator prior to her arrival, as instructed. “It’s prefilled. With one hand, squeeze the skin on her tummy into a fold like this.” She grabbed my stomach and showed my mother, who leaned over me to watch. “Using the other hand, firmly jab the needle into the skin, then push the plunger.” With that, she injected me.
“You think you can do that?” I asked my mother.
“Looks straightforward to me.”
I wasn’t sure she sounded convinced, but she knew she needed to be able to do this, and she was determined.
“Just to clarify, the needle is ready to go? All I have to do is push the plunger to make it go into her skin?”
“You got it. Alana, you might feel a bit sore in the injection site for a day or two after, and there might be a bit of bruising, but it shouldn’t be too bad.” She looked at my mother. “Just remember where you injected and use a different spot each time.”
“Is there anything else we should know?” I asked.
“The drug may make your bones ache somewhat, but you should be fine otherwise.”
Neither of us had any other questions, so the nurse went on her way, giving me a hotline number we could call if we had any problems. I shut the door after her. “Are you sure you’re okay with the idea of giving me the needle, Mom?”
“Of course. I just hope you feel all right after,” she said distractedly. I could tell she was worried that she’d do something that would cause me discomfort on top of everything else.
Charley, on the other hand, was oblivious to how I was feeling much of the time.
“Mom, can we go to the park?” she asked one sunny but cold afternoon when I was lying on the couch.
“Charley, I’ll take you and Rudy when he wakes up from his nap,” my mother jumped in. “Let Mommy rest.”
“I’ll go, too,” I said. I was tired. I would have liked to rest. I probably should have rested. But how could I say no to my child? How on earth would Charley understand it if I kept saying no? What if cancer ultimately took my life? How would she remember me? As the mother who always said no? So off we went after getting the kids dressed and tucking Rudy in his stroller.
“One more time, Mommy!” Charley yelled as she got to the bottom of the slide for the umpteenth time. When she ran back around to the ladder again, she said, “Come with me!”
“Who me?” I hesitated for no more than a split second before I climbed up with her. We played until even the kids got tired, then headed home. “That truly was just what I needed,” I said to my mother. As we walked, I couldn’t help but think about what had already occurred, and what was looming over me. The fate of my breasts.
“Mom,” I said, breaking my silence, “if you knew that keeping your breasts increased your risk of having cancer, what would you do?”
She stopped walking and took me by the arms. “Alana, you need to do whatever it is that you need to do. If it means removing your breasts, then remove your breasts. If you need to remove a finger or a toe as well, do it. I want you here for a long time and so do your kids.”
I hadn’t realized it, but I’d been holding my breath. I released it in a big cloud of white smoke that drifted off into the winter sky. “You’re right. I was thinking the same thing. I just didn’t know if that was too drastic.”
“Not at all. And if it was me, I would tell the doctors to take both.”
I hadn’t had an in-depth discussion with my doctors about a mastectomy, but the decision turned out to be not so difficult after all. I felt relieved. We’d been out playing for more than an hour, and the time had flown by. I was tired but glad I’d gone. There was no question in my mind anymore. The situation was desperate, and I would resort to desperate measures because I had to.
That night at dinner I said to Greg and my mom, “I’m going to ask for a double mastectomy. I don’t want these anymore, and I don’t want to be at any kind of elevated risk.” I waited for them to interject, but somehow I knew they wouldn’t. They knew me well enough to know that once I had made up my mind, there wasn’t going to be any convincing me otherwise.
Chapter 14
IT’S ONLY HAIR, ISN’T IT?
When I was growing up, there were plenty of times when I wanted to be like everyone else, especially during those formative teenage years. I wanted to wear what everyone else was wearing, I wanted to look like everyone else, and I especially wanted the same brand-name items everyone else had—from clothes to purses to shoes.
My mother held another point of view. “You should appreciate being different from other people, being unique in some way,” she’d say. Erin, Braden, and I didn’t always have a choice—Mom did the majority of the shopping for us.
As an adult, I was determined to put what Mom tried to teach us into practice. That meant trying not to feel down about eventually losing my hair, but rather embracing that situation. “I’m thinking about having a head-shaving party,” I said to my good friend Michael, who was also my chiropractor. When the time came for my hair to go, I wanted be the one to get rid of it. I didn’t want to leave that to the cancer or the chemotherapy. “That way my friends and family can be there with me as I cut it all off. What do you think?”
“When you do it, I’ll do it, too,” he said.
“Really? Come on.” I was half laughing to myself at the thought of him being bald, yet was almost positive he was joking.
“Absolutely. I’m 100 percent in. We’ll do it together.”
A few days later, my friend Andre stopped by my house after he was done teaching. He’d been my teaching partner for five years and we were close. Even though I was off on maternity leave, we kept in touch, talking and often getting together. “I heard what Michael’s going to do,” he said. The two of them were good friends, too.
“Crazy, isn’t it?”
“Not at all! I’m going to help him plan the party.”
“What?”
“We’re totally with you, Alana.”
I hugged him. My crazy friends!
Michael and Andre rallied even more of my friends, including Melanie and a number of the other teachers I worked with, and began organizing everything.
“Tony booked the venue,” Andre said. “We’re going to have it at Dave & Buster’s.” Tony was another of my colleagues, whom I’d gotten along with right from the start. He worked part-time as a bartender on weekends in addition to teaching. “It’s got food, drinks, even an arcade for the kids, so something for everyone. It’s the perfect place.
“We’ll sell tickets, and we figure some of the money can go to help you with your extra costs or to hire someone to help you clean, and some can go to a cancer charity. The price will include food and games. And we’ll get friends and family to donate prizes for a silent auction.” I could tell he was so excited.
“I can’t believe what you guys are doing! You’re amazing!” I hugged him and almost started crying. I was so excited, too, that for a moment I almost stopped thinking about the fact that I was going to lose my hair.
I didn’t have
long to figure out a way to explain that I was going to be losing my hair to Charley. I struggled with that. A lot had to do with how I felt about it. I didn’t want to look odd; I wanted to maintain my dignity, to look like a lady.
In the end, I just started talking. “Charley, you know that Mommy isn’t feeling well, right?”
She looked at me and nodded.
“I have to take some medicine that’s going to make me better.”
“Is it purple?”
I knew she was thinking of grape-flavored children’s medicine she’d taken when she had a cold. “No, not purple. But you know how we’ll know the medicine is working?”
She thought for a minute. “How?”
“Because it will make my hair fall out.” I kept talking before she could say anything. “And that’s a good thing! If my hair didn’t fall out, then we wouldn’t know that Mommy’s getting better.”
“Okay,” she said, and went off to play.
My mother had come in as I finished talking. “Either this is over her head,” I said to her, “or it’s not that big a deal.”
“I think children take things as they come.”
“You’re probably right. This is happening too fast. I hope Charley is okay with everything. As for me, I’m scared to get my head shaved by someone I don’t know. I’ve never had a hairdresser I’ve called my own.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve already taken care of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve asked Lepa to come to the party.”
“That’s perfect!” Lepa was Mom’s hairdresser. She’d never cut my hair, but I knew her well. Mom thought of everything.
“I’m going to check on the kids,” she said. “You take it easy.”
I glanced around the room. “I’m not sure that’s possible around here.” Toys were scattered everywhere as usual. Mom left, and I started cleaning up. I couldn’t help but glance in the hall mirror as I passed by it. I pulled my hair back tightly, trying to imagine how I’d look with no hair.
I couldn’t.
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