Six Months to Live

by Lurlene McDaniel

  Sandy suffered the same agonies. When it was especially bad for one or the other, the one least affected would help the other. They read poetry to one another. They told each other long, silly stories about school and childhood fantasies.

  “When I get married,” Sandy would say, “I want two children, a boy and a girl. I’ll call the boy Christopher and the girl, Dawn . . .”

  “I’m going to college just like Rob,” Dawn would tell her friend. “I’m going to be a lawyer. Daddy always said I could argue the fuzz off a peach . . .”

  “Do you think Jason will ever want to kiss me again?” Sandy would ask.

  “Do you think I’ll ever be able to be on the cheerleading squad again?” Dawn would counter.

  On the days when they both felt decent, they struggled to keep up with their respective school work. Dawn was determined to pass to the eighth grade. Her cancer was not going to hold her back an entire school year! She took the tests her teachers prepared for her and her mother brought to the hospital. She even managed to complete an English term paper. But algebra had to wait until she felt better. She simply couldn’t manage to grasp it in her weakened state.

  Rob wrote. He called often. Rhonda called, too. But her friends eventually stopped coming to the hospital. They told one another that the sight of Dawn was just too depressing. Secretly, Dawn was relieved that they stopped visiting. It was disheartening to be around them. They didn’t understand. No one but Sandy really understood what she was going through.

  So, Dawn waited, accepting her therapy and taking her medications. She waited for the wonderful day when the bone marrow aspirations, the blood test, the red count, the white count and the platelet count would all show that she was finally in remission. It would be then that her body and her mind were winning the war against leukemia. She would be winning the battle for control of her life.

  “You have a fever,” Nurse Fredia said. She slipped the end of the electronic thermometer out of Dawn’s mouth and flicked the white sheath off into the garbage can.

  “So what’s new?” Dawn asked weakly. The chemotherapy had caused her to have fevers before.

  Nurse Fredia’s cool hands brushed Dawn’s brow and her eyes looked worried and concerned. “I think this one’s different,” she told Dawn. “You may be coming down with an infection.”

  Dawn’s heart gave a little lurch. She knew it was dangerous to get an infection while taking chemotherapy. The powerful drugs killed cancer cells, but they also killed and weakened normal cells. She simply didn’t have the inner resources to fight off an infection, not even a simple cold.

  “What does that mean?” Dawn asked through dry, cracked lips feeling suddenly weak, then hot, then cold.

  “I’m calling Dr. Sinclair,” nurse Fredia told her and left the room.

  In minutes, doctors seemed to materialize around her bed. Hands probed, voices whispered, sounds rose and receded all around her.

  “Dawn!” Dr. Sinclair was calling her name. She struggled to speak, but no sound came out. Why couldn’t she answer him? She wanted to.

  “Dawn,” his voice said from far away. “We’re going to move you, Dawn. We’re taking you down to Intensive Care so that we can monitor you more closely.”

  She wanted to tell him, “No.” She wanted to let him know that she was fine right here in her own room. But she was too weak to respond, too weak and tired and cold and hot.

  From far away she heard Sandy say her name. And it sounded like she was crying . . .

  CHAPTER

  6

  Someone lifted her onto another bed, someone with strong, cool hands. The bed started to roll, Dawn was conscious of moving out of her room, onto an elevator and down a long hallway. Overhead, the lights flowed past like a stream. She shut her eyes against the glare and the intensity of their brightness.

  Her head hurt. It pounded, throbbed and ached. It felt like it weighed a ton and she couldn’t manage to move it from side to side. The rolling bed stopped in another room. This room was quiet. The lights were very dim.

  The hands lifted her again onto another bed. There were machines and a curtain all around the bed. She felt surrounded by nurses she didn’t recognize. Where was Nurse Fredia? Dawn felt confused and disoriented.

  Someone attached little metal cups to her chest. Wires led from the cups to a machine next to her bed. The compact machine sounded blip-blip-blip as a tiny green line journeyed across its television-shaped face over and over.

  “That’s the signal of your heartbeat,” a voice explained.

  What a funny place to keep my heartbeat, Dawn thought. Why would they want to see her beartbeat? Didn’t they know she had leukemia?

  Someone else stuck something in her arm. Dawn moaned and felt something warm flood through her. An upside-down bottle clanked next to her bed on a metal stand. Dawn saw it and wondered why it was filled with red liquid. Her chemotherapy wasn’t red. . . .

  “We’re giving you blood,” the nurse told her. “Your blood count is very low. We’re giving you antibiotics, too.”

  Dawn half-heard her. Have they told my mom and dad? she wondered. What will they think when they come to visit me tomorrow and find my bed empty? They’ll be worried. Sandy will tell them, she assured herself. Sandy’s a good friend . . .

  A slow comfortable lethargy began to spread through her limbs. She felt like she was floating, drifting down a river toward peaceful sleep. There was no pain, no noise, only the sweet, wonderful sensation of floating up, up and up into a quiet, cool realm of dark bliss.

  * * * * *

  Dawn Rochelle had little memory of the time she spent in Intensive Care. It was mostly impressions and dream fantasies. She was sometimes aware of everything; sometimes aware of nothing. There were many nurses and doctors. It seemed as if someone was always in the room with her.

  She couldn’t talk. They had shoved a tube down her throat and it prohibited her from speaking. The monitor next to her bed kept sending the green line signaling that her hear beat regularly. The tubes, bottles, bags and syringes all testified to the gravity of her illness.

  She remembered her parents floating in and out of the room. She remembered nurses, technicians and doctors. She recalled her minister standing next to her bed and it occurred to her that maybe God would hear his prayers for her. She didn’t care what happened to her. She was too sick to care.

  Rob came. “Hi, Squirt.” His voice came from the end of a long tunnel. In her mind, she was walking toward him through a field of flowers. A teddy bear on a large white horse stopped next to her and offered her a ride.

  “Mr. Ruggers!” she gasped in her dream state. “What are you doing here?”

  He said nothing. Teddy bears can’t talk. She should have remembered that. But he pulled her up onto the horse behind him. She tightened her arms around his plump, fuzzy waist and rode with him through the tall grass on his great white steed.

  They came to a stream which they crossed. They came to an old castle. It was covered with moss and vines, and the stones looked ancient and crumbling. “Look!” Dawn cried, pointing up to a turret of the old castle.

  A girl leaned out, a pretty girl with long, long white-blond hair. “I know her,” Dawn told Mr. Ruggers. “You need to get her down,” she told the bear.

  The great white horse reared and the pretty girl called, “I’m Rapunzel. Can you get me down? The wicked witch leukemia has locked me up here. I want to go home.”

  Mr. Ruggers raised his lance. Dawn pressed herself closer to his warm bear body, except he was no longer a bear. Suddenly, he’d turned into Jake Macka from her school. She blushed and let go. She felt awkward hugging Jake so tightly.

  “Dawn! Dawn!” Her mother’s voice was calling her away from the castle. She drifted back from the castle wall and off the white horse and floated like an autumn leaf down onto a bed in a hospital room.

  She struggled to speak, but the tube down her throat wouldn’t let her. “It’s all right, Honey.” Her mother sa
id. “Don’t talk. I love you, Dawn. Daddy loves you. Sandy says to hurry up and get well. She misses you.”

  Dawn nodded ever so slowly, and then drifted back to sleep.

  One day, she awoke, the last of her stupor and half-consciousness gone. Everything hurt, but she was alert and aware and sore. And she was hungry.

  They removed the tube from her throat. “Welcome back,” Dr. Sinclair told her. “You’ve been a mighty sick little girl. But you’re going to be fine now. We’ve licked the infection and you’re recovering.”

  Dawn tried to say, “Thanks.” But her throat was too sore.

  “The tube,” Dr. Sinclair explained.

  Her parents arrived and the expression on their faces told her that Dr. Sinclair had been truthful with her. She was going to be fine. Her mom’s eyes filled with bright tears as she kissed her daughter’s forehead. Her dad held her hand and said, “I knew you’d pull through, baby. You’re a fighter.”

  Dawn wanted to get out of Intensive Care. She wanted to return to her room on the Oncology floor. She wanted to see Sandy again. She wanted to be free of the ICU ward, its monitors, “blips,” tubes and IV bottles. Two days later, she got her wish. They returned her to her regular hospital room. Nurse Fredia personally came for her, pushing Dawn in a wheelchair onto the Oncology floor.

  Someone had strung a long banner across the hallway. It read: “Welcome Back, Dawn!” Many of the kids stood by the doorways of their rooms and waved to her as she glided down the hall. Nurse Fredia delivered her to her room and said, “We missed you, Dawn! Welcome back!”

  Her room was filled with flowers in baskets and vases, and dish gardens of green plants. Dawn blinked and gasped with surprise. She hadn’t expected such a reception. Sandy greeted her with squeals of joy. They hugged each other warmly. “I’ve missed you so much!” her friend cried. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re back!”

  Dawn smiled, still feeling weak. “You have a pile of cards and letters in the drawer of your bedside table,” Nurse Fredia told her. “I think half of the state of Ohio has written you.”

  “I’ll look at them later,” Dawn said, feeling overwhelmed by the outpouring of affection people had shown her. Nurse Fredia settled her in bed. Once everybody left, Dawn asked Sandy to tell her what had happened during her two-week stay in Intensive Care.

  Sandy burbled on and on. Dawn lay listening, letting Sandy’s words wash over her, happy to be near her friend again. After a while, Sandy grew silent. When she spoke again, it was in quiet, almost shy tones. “I-I made you somethin’,” she said.

  “In the activity room?” Dawn asked.

  “Yes,” Sandy confirmed. And she handed Dawn a rolled-up piece of poster board.

  Gingerly, Dawn unrolled the stiff paper board. On it Sandy had drawn a teddy bear army attacking clumps and clusters of bright green globs. Dawn gasped with surprise. “My Imaging picture!” she said. “Oh, Sandy! It’s super, just like I imagined it! Thanks so much!”

  “I-I thought it might help you. And . . . and it’s somethin’ for you to remember me by when we both go home,” she added.

  “I’m going to hang it right here on that wall across from my bed. And when I go home, I’m going to hang it up in my room. It’s really special, Sandy, mostly because you drew it,” Dawn said.

  Sandy smiled and gave a modest shrug. “When you were gone . . . in Intensive Care . . . I thought about what a good friend you’ve become to me. I-I always want you to remember me . . .” her voice trailed.

  “I’ll never forget you,” Dawn said fiercely. “Never! You’re the best friend ever. And we’re going to celebrate with a reunion every year after we go into remission. So start planning on it!”

  Sandy smiled a bit sadly. “I hope we can, Dawn. I hope we can be friends forever!” she said.

  “Forever!” Dawn said. “And once we’ve been in remission for five years, we’ll celebrate by taking a long vacation together,” Dawn assured her. “Because after five years, even Dr. Sinclair says we’re cured.”

  Sandy nodded and drawled, “Here’s to our five-year vacation trip!” Sandy Chandler and Dawn Rochelle toasted each other and their futures with styrofoam cups filled with warm pop while the hospital routine settled in around them.

  CHAPTER

  7

  The next morning Dawn looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. It was a mistake. For a full minute, she did not recognize the person who stared back at her. In fact, if the image had not lifted its hand to touch its face whenever she did, she would not have believed that it was truly herself.

  Dawn thought she looked like a victim of a concentration camp, gaunt and thin. Her skin was stretched across her bones. Its color, pale and ashen, seemed transparent. It looked as if it might tear if she pressed it too hard. Her lips were chapped and cracked and what was left of her hair was dull and flat.

  “I am ugly,” she told her mother, “really ugly.”

  “You’re alive,” her mother reminded her. “Looks will come back. Remember, ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’” she quoted. “I think you’re absolutely gorgeous.” Dawn knew her mother was right. Once the chemotherapy was complete, her looks would return.

  Dawn went through the stacks and stacks of letters and cards. Most were from people in her church, distant relatives and friends of her parents. Many were from kids at school. Her entire English class had written. “It was probably a writing assignment,” Dawn told Sandy. “You know, like the kind teachers always give you at the start of school: ‘What I Did on My Summer Vacation.’”

  Sandy giggled. “I know. Boy, am I gonna have a lot to write about next year!” she laughed.

  But one card, one very special card was from Jake Macka. Dawn’s heart thumped as she read it and her hands trembled slightly. It was a cute card with a picture of a bear on it. How’d Jake know about my liking bears? she wondered. Inside, under the printed words, Jake had written:

  Dawn,

  Get well soon. Maybe I’ll see you at the skating rink sometime this summer.

  Jake

  She clutched the card to her chest and savored his words and his memory. . . “the skating rink.” Once she got home, she’d make a special trip to go there . . . once her hair grew back, and her body curves came back. Jake . . . tall, slim, with black hair and brown eyes . . . She remembered how thick and long his eyelashes were. It was fun to think that he really wanted to see her. She hoped his card wasn’t just an assignment and that he really meant it.

  Dawn’s illness had set her cancer therapy back by weeks. Therefore, a new schedule of drugs for Dawn began immediately. They were potent drugs and wonder drugs designed to stop the relentless spread of her leukemia. Dawn’s days melted into one another. They dissolved and disappeared into one long continuous ebb and flow of time. Tests and more tests punctuated the hours. Drugs and more drugs splintered the day from the night. It was the same for Sandy.

  Then one day, the lab reports came back for Sandy that said: “Remission.” The elusive dream had been attained for her. The leukemia had been checked. Remission had been achieved. Maintenance drug programs had been arranged. And Sandy Chandler was going home.

  “You write me, you hear?” Sandy demanded her last day in the hospital.

  Dawn struggled to hold back her tears and nodded numbly to her friend. “I will,” she promised. “And you write me. Tell me what to expect when I get back home.”

  Mr. Chandler gathered up his daughter’s belongings. Three months of books, magazines, plants and stuffed animals were piled into cardboard boxes. Dawn tried not to notice from the corner of her eye. It was too painful. Sandy was leaving. She was staying.

  “It’ll happen for you, too,” her friend told her. Sandy’s mother had bought her new jeans and a top for her homecoming. Sandy was still very thin, but her color was again bright in her fair cheeks and her wig made her look older than her 13 years.

  “I know,” Dawn said, fighting to keep her voice from cracking. “I’ll look at the
picture you made for me every day, and I’ll think of you,” Dawn assured her.

  “We’re ready, Hon!” her father’s voice boomed. He looked coiled, like an animal ready to spring from a cage. “Now you take good care of yourself, Dawn,” he directed. “Maybe you could come and visit us next summer.”

  “I’d like that,” Dawn said.

  Then she watched as Sandy followed her parents out of the door toward her freedom. The late morning sun cut through the window and filled the room with bright, warm light. But inside, Dawn felt cold and empty. For the first time in two and a half months, she was alone.

  She fought to keep her tears of depression from spilling down her cheeks. She clutched the bed-sheets tightly in her fists. Her mom would come soon, she knew. Maybe she could make the hurt and loneliness go away. “I won’t cry!” she told herself fiercely. “I should be happy. Sandy is in remission. I should be grateful and not be laying around feeling sorry for myself.”

  Wiping the back of her hand across her eyes, Dawn leaned forward and buzzed the nurses’ station. In minutes, Nurse Fredia appeared. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I’d like a milk shake, please,” Dawn said.

  Nurse Fredia broke into a broad smile. “Good! Excellent! What flavor?”

  “Strawberry.” Dawn said. “Make it double thick and put some of that protein powder in it, too. The sooner I get out of this place, the better,” she added with determination.

  * * * * *

  Within four days, a letter arrived from Sandy. Eagerly, Dawn tore it open and read the neat, flowing writing.

  Dear Dawn,

  It’s strange being back home again. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. For a while everything was so exciting . . . seeing old friends, making my own sandwiches, you know.