Cat’s Paw - Part 1 by Zooie
Standard disclaimers apply
Duo POV
"Hello? Anyone alive in there?"
I fight to open my eyes, my body struggling against my efforts every
step of the way. Who knew how complicated it was to convince your eyelids
to move? I wage battle for a few seconds, then finally succeed in my
endeavor. I blink my eyes open and peer blearily through my lashes.
I am rewarded by the sight of a young, blonde intern, his face mostly
concealed by one of those stupid surgical masks. He is holding a bag
of murky-looking fluid in his gloved hands and is wearing about three
of those gauzy surgical gowns. He looks like Dr. Frankenstein. I vaguely
wonder if he’s going to start cackling and screaming, “it’s
alive!”
"Oh, good. You're awake. That'll make things a bit easier, now
won't it?" he mildly states, crossing the room to my bedside. His
feet whisper unnaturally across the linoleum floor. I know if I could
look over the side of my bed, I would see that he is wearing some of
those ridiculous cloth booties over his shoes. One of the advantages
of living in a "protective isolation room" is that you get
to see the height of medical style first hand. I should start my own
magazine. Call it “the Fashionable Intern.”
As I try to convince my body that it is in fact awake and my mind isn't
just going for a joy ride, the intern gently changes the bag on my IV
stand. He keeps up a steady stream of chatter while he works, his voice
gentle and reassuring. Today he's updating me on his conquest of the
stray cat population near his house.
"... finally got the hint. I've been leaving it food for months
and he only just now realized that he could trust me. Isn't it funny
how long it can take to earn an animal's trust? I've met paranoid schizophrenics
who are more trusting than that cat is!" He chuckles. "I'm
trying to think of a name for him, now that we've bonded. Any suggestions?"
My brain isn't tracking too well and, when I try to speak, my mouth
is too dry to allow for speech. The intern notices my dilemma and takes
a glass off my nightstand, holding the straw to my lips. I gratefully
sip at the tepid water, hoping my stomach won't rebel too strongly against
the intrusion. Thankfully, I manage to contain my upchuck reflex, although
the intern holds my puke pan ready. The blonde -Quatre, my mind supplies
very belatedly- nods approvingly. I think he’s just glad I didn’t
vomit on his khaki Dockers.
Nice pants. Thanks, I barfed on them myself! Hmmm. That could be my
magazine’s first cover. Quatre in vomit-riddled pants. “Do
It Yourself Fashion Tips,” the headline would read. Now all I
need is some financial backing...
"Well, you must be getting pretty excited!” Quatre chirps.
“Your GVHD is almost cleared up! I guess those Corticosteroids
did the trick. Why, soon you'll be able to move to a regular room. Just
think. This time next week, you could have a roommate!"
I dredge up a grin for the enthusiastic blonde. "Pity... them,"
I rasp weakly.
Quatre laughs. "Now there's the Duo I remember! Ready to wreak
havoc at a moment's notice!"
"Someone has to... liven things up," I manage. My eyes are
doing their best to fall shut. I am too tired to even feel pain, although
through the haze of drugs I can tell my body is far from comfortable.
At this moment in time, I simply don't have the energy to take note.
"No, no. Not yet, you don't." Quatre gently pats my cheek,
prompting me to open my eyes again. "Let me check your catheter
first. Hold still." He carefully draws the covers down to my waist,
exposing me to the chill air. I shiver slightly as he gently undoes
the buttons on my flannel top. One of the other advantages of long-term
hospital stay was that they let you wear real pajamas, even if they
did have to be chopped apart to ensure they didn't get entangled with
the various tubes. Mine were blue, black, and green plaid. They've been
washed so many times, the fabric is becoming pilled and thin. I don’t
care, for the fabric is soft against my abused skin.
Maybe I could be in the magazine, too. Only my headline would read,
“Functional and Flirty Flannels.” There’d be a glossy
photo layout featuring me in my frumpy PJs in various locations around
the hospital, doped up on painkillers. Duo, looking pensive by the lobby
fountain. Duo, lounging in the MRI machine. Duo, drooling in his sleep.
Look out, Victoria’s Secret!
Quatre makes sure the catheter isn't infected or jarred loose. It's
been in place for close to two months now and I know it'll likely be
three or four more before it comes out. I've started to think of it
almost like a pet. My pet cat, maybe. I could call it Leech. Leech the
blood-sucking catheter. Of course, he gave as good as he took, so that
perhaps wasn't fair. Vomit Comet might be a better name. Or maybe Drippy.
Drippy... the long lost eighth dwarf. Snow White, eat your heart out.
That's the other funny thing about the drugs. They really play havoc
on your imagination.
*******
I've been in the hospital for close to three months now. I'm a bit
of a permanent fixture here at the Winner Medical Center. A few of the
hospital’s veteran employees have taken to calling me a bad penny.
I just keep coming back. That isn't to imply that I am disliked or unwelcome
by the staff. It is merely an inside joke and, if you know my background,
is actually rather humorous in an odd sort of way.
My visits had first started about five years ago when I'd suddenly
become ill with a fever and completely lost my appetite. I was listless,
bruised at the slightest touch, and had awful pains in my joints. I
was living in a Catholic orphanage at the time, the only home I'd known
in my ten years of life. I'd been an orphan seemingly from birth and
had never known my family. I'd been raised by nuns alongside fifty other
orphans and when I'd first fallen sick, they'd attributed it to normal
childhood illness. When I was still feeling badly a month later, however,
they'd finally taken me to the WMC, where there was a free clinic. It
was there that I was diagnosed with ALL, or Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
I'd spent the next two and a half years living in the hospital, undergoing
radiation and then chemotherapy. Though normally leukemia patients are
able to live at home for most of their treatment, the conditions in
the orphanage prevented me from doing so. The hospital administrators,
the Winner family, had agreed to let me stay at the hospital during
the course of my therapy, serving as a make-shift hospice. So with the
state footing the bill and the Winner family making special accommodations,
I got the help I needed.
Though the nuns from the orphanage visited me faithfully, the hospital
staff became more of a family to me than they could be. After all, they
did still have the other children to look out for. They did their best,
but gradually their visits ended. For the last year of my treatment,
I had no visitors except the occasional charity group. It was a lonely
time, but the hospital staff kept my hopes high. Finally, after the
intense course of treatment was completed, my cancer went into remission.
I was then able to return to the orphanage, fragile and frail, but alive.
Three nondescript years passed and then I had abruptly relapsed. A
routine check-up revealed that leukemia cells had once more appeared
in my bone marrow. I was admitted to the hospital that very day, the
Winners once more paying for my treatment. This time they embarked on
a much more intrusive course of therapy: bone marrow transplant.
The process isn't quick or simple. You're kept in virtual isolation
for nearly the entire time, since you're so susceptible to illness.
It's akin to having no immune system at all.
First they stick a catheter into a large vein in your chest. In the
coming months, this will be used to draw and give blood, administer
drugs, and feed you intravenously. It will also be used to transplant
your new bone marrow. After a few days of testing, you begin to undergo
intensive chemotherapy and whole body radiation. This destroys all the
cancerous cells in your body as well as your healthy bone marrow. You're
then pumped full of medications to manage and lessen the side effects
of the high-dosage chemotherapy and radiation. You're put on antibiotics
because you're susceptible to infections. You get blood transfusions
and are fed through the catheter. You puke like its your job, are nauseous
when you're not puking, lose all your hair, can't eat a damn thing,
get the worst sore throat you can imagine, run a mild fever, and generally
do nothing but sleep. Your skin gets itchy and red, your mouth dries
up, everything tastes funny, and you get weird rashes. You get really
dehydrated, but your body still retains water and your feet and hands
swell up. Your whole body aches and throbs. It's absolutely miserable.
This lasts for about two weeks.
The next step is the actual bone marrow transfusion. They transplant
it through the catheter. The new marrow travels through your blood to
your bones where it begins making new red and white blood cells and
platelets. It takes about a month after the transplant for this to happen.
Around this time, if you're lucky, you develop a wonderful little illness
called Graft-verses-Host Disease or GVHD. This happens because your
new bone marrow -which is essentially your new immune system- decides
your body is an infection and fights it. You get some really kick-ass
bacterial infections, lose a ton more weight, and your skin gets all
hard and splotchy. Then they put you on a course of steroids and other
lovely medications, all with new side-effects to enjoy.
While your immune system is sorting itself out, you usually get a few
other gifts from God, such as pneumonia. You can also have some truly
inspiring nosebleeds. Toss in a few random viral infections, and you
suddenly need all your fingers and toes to count the number of medications
you get on a daily basis.
About two or three months after the transplant, you get to leave the
isolation chamber and go home. However, you remain an outpatient for
the next year or so. At first you visit the hospital three or four times
a week, then slowly taper down to once a month. It takes a full year
for you to regain even a semblance of your former health and you have
to continue taking a montage of medications. However, at the end of
it all, you're alive.
Currently I am nearing the end of the isolation process. It's been
about two months since I had my transplant. My body is slowly returning
to a functional state. Though exhaustion is still my constant companion,
now I can consistently remain awake for hours on end. This is a massive
improvement over the past couple of months where ten minutes a day was
all I could hope for.
As Quatre had noted, my GVHD has almost cleared up. I'm still plagued
by pneumonia, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was. The nausea is
starting to diminish and my hair is growing back. Although I'm skin
and bones and resemble a concentration prisoner, the swelling is almost
gone from my joints. The rashes are fading, the nosebleeds less common,
and my mouth is finally starting to once more lubricate itself. Overall,
I can see massive progress.
Of course, there's still a long way to go. But at least I know I'm
going to wake up to see tomorrow.
*******
TBC
*******
On to Part 2
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