Garrett(29)

“Is that the worst kind?” I whisper fearfully.

“Yes,” he says as he throws the chart back down on the table. Walking up to me, he reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. “But like I told you before, this disease is treatable. We have a good chance of knocking it into remission. So I’d like to go ahead and start treatment tomorrow.”

“What does that mean? Start treatment?”

“I’m going to start you on a combo of Rituxin, which is an immunotherapy drug, and bendamustine, which is a chemotherapy drug. Tomorrow you’ll get both the Rituxin and bendamustine, both intravenously, then the day after, you’ll get another dose of bendamustine. We’ll do that treatment every four weeks for six cycles. I’ll do repeat scans at the halfway mark to see how you’re responding, and we’ll do another bone-marrow biopsy after the sixth cycle, and hopefully we’ll find it’s in remission.”

“And the side effects?” I ask quietly. “I mean…I know you said I wouldn’t lose my hair, but I’m sure something’s going to happen to me, right?”

“You might get a little sick. We’ll give you antinausea medication before the treatment, and I’ll send you home with some…but you might feel poorly for a few days. But then you should be fine.”

“Anything else?”

“We’ll monitor your blood…you’re anemic now, and I’ll put you on some iron for that. Because chemotherapy stops cells from dividing, it could affect your white or red blood cell counts, but otherwise this treatment is fairly mild and shouldn’t cause you too many problems.”

Okay, that doesn’t sound all that bad. And he says that this will probably go into remission. Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and smile at him.

“All right. I can do this. So, let’s get this show on the road while the Ativan is still working.”

Dr. Yoffman laughs and turns to wash his hands in the sink. “That’s what I like to hear. Now go ahead and lie down on left your side. Stevie…post up by her head and hold tight on to her hand. This won’t be too painful, but I know it’s all kinds of scary. I’ll talk you through the entire procedure.”

I lay on my side, pulling the paper sheet around me so as not to expose myself to Stevie. Not that he’d be bothered by it, but he definitely wouldn’t know what to do with it either. I snicker to myself thinking that.

Stevie comes to stand near my head and takes my hand. “So, you were telling me all about having hot sex with Garrett last night.”

I rear up on the table and practically shriek at Stevie, “You ass…that’s not appropriate here.”

“Yes,” Dr. Yoffman says drily as he walks up to the table and eases me back down with a hand on my shoulder. “We want to keep her blood pressure stable, so no talking about hot sex while I’m doing this.”

Stevie’s face gets red and he mutters an apology. I reach out and slap him on the chest with a warning look to behave, then I take his hand in mine and squeeze it hard. He looks at me sheepishly and then his eyes start following Dr. Yoffman while he gets ready.

I can’t see anything, but I can hear Dr. Yoffman rustling around, the squeak of stiff wheels on the mobile cart that holds the instruments, and then the snap of gloves.

Dr. Yoffman pulls the paper sheet down, and judging by the cool air that hits me, I’m guessing he’s exposed my lower back and half my ass. “Okay…I want you to tuck your legs up, Olivia.”

I do as he asks and he starts pressing on my lower back, just above my right hip bone. “I’m looking for your sacroiliac crest. That’s where I’ll go in.”

He presses around, deeply, and then I can feel a cool, wet feeling. “I’m just marking you with a Sharpie.”

I feel more wetness rubbing in circles around the area and Dr. Yoffman says, “This is some Betadine, and now I’m putting a sterile dressing over the site.”

His hands press something over me, smoothing it into place.

I hear something rattle on the tray, and I watch Stevie’s eyes go wide and his skin get pale. “I’m going to inject you with some lidocaine now. This will sting just a bit.”

I barely feel the prick of the needle and I think to myself, This isn’t all that bad.

“Now I’m going to get a little deeper with the needle so I can numb around the bone,” Dr. Yoffman says, but I still can’t really feel it. After a few seconds, he says, “All done.”

Stevie swallows hard and leans down toward me. “Holy shit, that was a big needle.”

“I hardly felt it,” I tell him with reassurance, and his hand squeezes me tighter.