NOTE: The process of cancer treatment is different for each patient. Depending on the type of cancer, the treatment protocols vary, but usually there is some combination of three attacks on the disease; surgery, radiation therapy or chemotherapy. The best method of attack lies, most of the time, in some combination of the three. As much as the disease and treatments vary, so do the reactions of the patient to his or her situation. Some patients are very open about their experience, realizing their role as 'informer' to those around them. Some patients, quietly endure their struggle in silence, beyond their immediate family, few around them know about their illness. Some patients, not wanting to face the reality of their situation, go into denial. They reluctantly endure treatment, convinced that treatment is a waste of time and energy. Most people who are diagnosed with cancer find themselves some where along this spectrum. Each person doing their best to work their way through this experience.
Chapter 17: Unwilling Bearer of Bad News
Polly sat behind the desk, silently trying to catch her breath and digest all the information that was layed out in front of her.
"Oh, my God. What am I going to tell Reg?" she thought to her self. She pushed a few charts around on the desk, trying to give the doctor the idea that she understood what was going on.
She nodded and looked at him, still silent, trying to grasp one of the thousand questions flying around in her mind, "What does this mean? For Reg? Will he be O.k.? I mean is this XACTO thing going to make him better?"
She paused, shaking her head, trying to remember what he had said, "You mentioned side-effects? What kind of side-effects?"
Dr. Emil George, stood now, affecting his professorial air, twirling both sides of his moustache. "Well, my dear. From what little evidence we have from past experimental treatments we know this."
He moved around to sit next to the wife of his patient.
"The combination of radiation and the chemotherapy used has created a bond that will make your husband very sensitive to his environment. This sensitivity will very for him, as with all our past patients. His DNA has bonded with the suit, so predicting exactly what will happen is not very easy."
Polly sat, listening, absentmindedly flipping through more charts and micro-photographs. "So, what I THINK you are telling me, is that you really don't KNOW what will happen to him, right?"
Busily twisting the right side of his 'stache, Dr. George paused, and said, "Well, no. Not exactly."
"Great!" was all Polly could muster, she sank lower in the chair, arms crossed trying to comfort herself like she did when she was little, trying to find that quiet place inside that would allow her to think.
Dr. George continued, "What we DO know is that patients have reported anything from hyper sensitivity to sunlight or sound. Some patients developed heightened senses of smell, hearing, touch or vision."
"Well," Polly snorted, "that pretty much covers everything."
"Yes, but what I haven't told you, is that whenever there is a positive side effect there is a complementary negative one." he was back in the mode of the professor once again, pacing, twirling the stache waving his arms.
"Our lab analysis of other patients seem to point to something to with the body's natural desire to achieve balance. Some how the way the skin has bound to the suit, requires that the electrolytes in the body remain neutral." the doctor explained. He waited for the woman to respond.
She sat there, silent. He waited.
"So, in a nut-shell," Polly stood now, pacing, trying still to pull it all together, "my husband has a life threatening cancer - two cancers. And, while being treated to remove one and cure the other, you used an experimental treatment that has some how gone wrong."
Dr. Emil George tried to interrupt, but Polly was determined and was rapidly pulling herself together, processing the information.
"This material, this 'suit' - the XACTO thing is permanently bonded to his body, leaving him.... Leaving him... What exactly? Disabled? Cured? In, what is the term, in 'remission'?" She paused for the doctor to comment.
The doctor, not standing this time, seemed humbled a bit. Not fiddling with his moustache, he folded his hands in front of him on the desk.
"No. Well, yes. Well, it all depends." he stammered.
"What the HELL, are you talking about?" Polly yelled now.
Continuing the doctor explained, "The effects of the XACTO fabric and the combination of chemo and radiation WILL effectively keep the cancer at bay, at least that is what our resarch shows, but your husband will have to return for re-immersion treatments at least twice a week for the medicine to keep working."
Looking the doctor right in the eye, like her gunslinger great-grandfather might have, "For how LONG? How many treatments will he need?"
For a second time, Dr. Emil George, noted oncologist, looked baffled, "Well, Mrs. Ularguy, we really don't know, but our guess is...forever."
"What am I going to tell my husband?" Polly asked, arms folded again.
Walking around the desk, the doctor offered, "I will be glad to come with you to discuss this with your husband..." Polly cut him off...
"No, thank you. I think you and your team have done enough already." she turned, left the room and walked down to her husband's room.
Chapter 18: Just Get To The Point
As she got closer to her husband's room, she could hear the monitors beeping. Steady, rhythmic beeping, indicating that her Reg was sleeping, or at least resting -- good, it would give her a few moments to figure out how to break all the news to her husband. News that she herself didn't really understand.
Polly sat at her husbands bedside, took note of the bandaged areas of his arms, his neck, his chest. She also noted the way the blue suit seemed to shimmer and move with his breathing, indeed it looked just like his skin, albeit with a shimmering hexagonal pattern throughout. She reached out, took his hand and waited.
She must have drifted off, she didn't know for how long, but woke when she felt her husband squeezing her hand.
"P-P-Pols? Are...you...awake?" Reg said, in a weak voice, barely above a whisper.
Polly stared awake, nearly dropping the pile of notes and papers that Dr. George had given her, "Yes, yes. I am here, hon. Can I get you anything?"
"Maybe just...some water." Reg, was trying to wake up, trying to clear his mind, he kept rubbing his eyes, but for some reason every thing around him looked a light shade of purple, People though, appeared to have been dyed various shades of pastel colors, nothing major, like in a comic book, but just enough to be 'off' from normal. He kept blinking, trying to get his eyes to work right, but nothing he did helped.
Polly turned to the beside table, where a pitcher of ice water sat, condensation dripping down the side, forming a small puddle on the table. She poured the water into a styrofoam cup and held it with one and as she pushed the button to raise her husbands bed with the other.
"Here you go, hon. Small sips, o.k.?" she held the cup to his lips, and noticed him blinking, seemingly trying to focus, or clear his vision. "Is there something wrong with your eyes?"
Looking at his wife, Reg tried to explain, "I...I...don't know, everything looks funny... Strange colors. I can't seem to get my eyes to be clear."
"Hmmm..." Polly, sat quietly, trying to restack the papers on her lap, moving them to the bedside table, next to the water.
"What? Does 'Hmmm' mean, Pols?" Reg asked trying to turn towards her, noting for the first time, all the places on his body that were bandaged. Fully awake now, he next examined the XACTO suit. His skin itched, everywhere. He tried to get under it but quickly discovered, to his growing confusion, that he could not. "Polly? What the HELL? What is this stuff? I can't seem to get under it? My skin is itching so bad it feels like ants crawling all over me!"
Having been prepared for some of this, Polly knew when to call the nurse, she reached for the call button and pressed it - somewhere outside the room she heard a panel start to beep. She turned back towards her husband.
Nurse Catrice swept in, "My, my, my chil' you's awake now! Scratchin' like a ol' hound dog! Let me give you somthin' to hep you out." She produced a syringe containing puple liquid, poked it into his IV line, and Reg felt a sudden rush of cool spread through his body, like he had been suddenly plunged in to a cool summer stream.
As the medicine took effect, Polly took a breath. Trying to figure out how to tell her husband all he was facing, not sure that she could.
Still trying, confusedly at the edges of the XACTO fabric, Reg couldn't understand what was going on. "Jesus, this stupid fabric is stuck to me, I see weird colors, my wife seems to be concerned. GOD someone tell me SOMETHING!" he thought to himself.
Polly grabbed his hands, trying to calm him. She began, "Reg, I don't know how else to tell you, there is just so much the doctor tried to explain to me while you were recovering."
"Where should I start?" she said, searching for a good point at which to tell her husband what had happened. "The surgery, that's a good point." she said, more for herself than for Reg. "Your surgery went well, they got all the colon cancer - and none of your other organs are affected - which is good, but they had to treat the other, spreading cancer, with this blue fabric."
Looking at Polly, waiting for more, Reg had relaxed a bit, leaned back into his bed, "I remember him talking about that fabric. It helps deliver my chemotherapy."
"Yes. And. Well. There's more." Polly was still searching for a way to tell him the rest.
"What do you mean, more" Reg said, running his hands over his blue suit, still itching a bit, but not as bad, Reg listened as his wife explained his situation.
"... well Reg, that's about it. The suit that is keeping you alive, is permanent. You will also have to return to the hospital every month to be re-treated in the biomemetic gel tank. You will also experience 'other symptoms' that are unique to your body, and how the DNA has bonded to your system." Polly stopped, reached for he water, her mouth dry from all the explaining.
Reg sat silently, blinking, much has Polly had in Dr. Georges' consultation room, trying to absorb everything he had just heard. He was stuck. Literally. Alive, but stuck none the less. This stupid blue suit, his messed up vision. The incessant itching, "God, what ELSE can happen?" he thought to himself.
Suddenly, Reg sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed and announced. "Help me up, Polly. I gotta get out of this room for a while. I gotta think."
He tried standing, knees wobbly, Polly had to catch him as he steadied himself at his bedside. "Just let me be, Polly. I gotta figure this out for myself." Reg pushed past her heading unsteadily for his door and wandered out into the hallway, and down the corridor.
Once in the hallway, Reg moved slowly along the wall, making his way past the other patient rooms. When he passed he noticed that each patient he saw had their own unique color, some brighter, some more dim, some practically non-existent. From the pieces of conversations he heard in passing from doctors, nurses, and family members he quickly put together the meaning of what he saw. When he did, he simply didn't know how to handle it, so he kept walking.
When he finally stopped walking, he realized he was in a waiting room near the hospitals entrance. He sat there, watching people walking by - each one a shade and intensity of color unique to them. He was finding himself able to guess which ones were the 'patients' and which ones were the 'family'. The sick and the healthy. He had finally given in to the fact that for some reason, this was how he saw things now. How he would always see them. He would know. He could see. Apparently this was the gift and the curse of his new condition. He HOPED that this was where it ended.
He would discover, that he was wrong. There would be much more.
Chapter 17: Unwilling Bearer of Bad News
Polly sat behind the desk, silently trying to catch her breath and digest all the information that was layed out in front of her.
"Oh, my God. What am I going to tell Reg?" she thought to her self. She pushed a few charts around on the desk, trying to give the doctor the idea that she understood what was going on.
She nodded and looked at him, still silent, trying to grasp one of the thousand questions flying around in her mind, "What does this mean? For Reg? Will he be O.k.? I mean is this XACTO thing going to make him better?"
She paused, shaking her head, trying to remember what he had said, "You mentioned side-effects? What kind of side-effects?"
Dr. Emil George, stood now, affecting his professorial air, twirling both sides of his moustache. "Well, my dear. From what little evidence we have from past experimental treatments we know this."
He moved around to sit next to the wife of his patient.
"The combination of radiation and the chemotherapy used has created a bond that will make your husband very sensitive to his environment. This sensitivity will very for him, as with all our past patients. His DNA has bonded with the suit, so predicting exactly what will happen is not very easy."
Polly sat, listening, absentmindedly flipping through more charts and micro-photographs. "So, what I THINK you are telling me, is that you really don't KNOW what will happen to him, right?"
Busily twisting the right side of his 'stache, Dr. George paused, and said, "Well, no. Not exactly."
"Great!" was all Polly could muster, she sank lower in the chair, arms crossed trying to comfort herself like she did when she was little, trying to find that quiet place inside that would allow her to think.
Dr. George continued, "What we DO know is that patients have reported anything from hyper sensitivity to sunlight or sound. Some patients developed heightened senses of smell, hearing, touch or vision."
"Well," Polly snorted, "that pretty much covers everything."
"Yes, but what I haven't told you, is that whenever there is a positive side effect there is a complementary negative one." he was back in the mode of the professor once again, pacing, twirling the stache waving his arms.
"Our lab analysis of other patients seem to point to something to with the body's natural desire to achieve balance. Some how the way the skin has bound to the suit, requires that the electrolytes in the body remain neutral." the doctor explained. He waited for the woman to respond.
She sat there, silent. He waited.
"So, in a nut-shell," Polly stood now, pacing, trying still to pull it all together, "my husband has a life threatening cancer - two cancers. And, while being treated to remove one and cure the other, you used an experimental treatment that has some how gone wrong."
Dr. Emil George tried to interrupt, but Polly was determined and was rapidly pulling herself together, processing the information.
"This material, this 'suit' - the XACTO thing is permanently bonded to his body, leaving him.... Leaving him... What exactly? Disabled? Cured? In, what is the term, in 'remission'?" She paused for the doctor to comment.
The doctor, not standing this time, seemed humbled a bit. Not fiddling with his moustache, he folded his hands in front of him on the desk.
"No. Well, yes. Well, it all depends." he stammered.
"What the HELL, are you talking about?" Polly yelled now.
Continuing the doctor explained, "The effects of the XACTO fabric and the combination of chemo and radiation WILL effectively keep the cancer at bay, at least that is what our resarch shows, but your husband will have to return for re-immersion treatments at least twice a week for the medicine to keep working."
Looking the doctor right in the eye, like her gunslinger great-grandfather might have, "For how LONG? How many treatments will he need?"
For a second time, Dr. Emil George, noted oncologist, looked baffled, "Well, Mrs. Ularguy, we really don't know, but our guess is...forever."
"What am I going to tell my husband?" Polly asked, arms folded again.
Walking around the desk, the doctor offered, "I will be glad to come with you to discuss this with your husband..." Polly cut him off...
"No, thank you. I think you and your team have done enough already." she turned, left the room and walked down to her husband's room.
Chapter 18: Just Get To The Point
As she got closer to her husband's room, she could hear the monitors beeping. Steady, rhythmic beeping, indicating that her Reg was sleeping, or at least resting -- good, it would give her a few moments to figure out how to break all the news to her husband. News that she herself didn't really understand.
Polly sat at her husbands bedside, took note of the bandaged areas of his arms, his neck, his chest. She also noted the way the blue suit seemed to shimmer and move with his breathing, indeed it looked just like his skin, albeit with a shimmering hexagonal pattern throughout. She reached out, took his hand and waited.
She must have drifted off, she didn't know for how long, but woke when she felt her husband squeezing her hand.
"P-P-Pols? Are...you...awake?" Reg said, in a weak voice, barely above a whisper.
Polly stared awake, nearly dropping the pile of notes and papers that Dr. George had given her, "Yes, yes. I am here, hon. Can I get you anything?"
"Maybe just...some water." Reg, was trying to wake up, trying to clear his mind, he kept rubbing his eyes, but for some reason every thing around him looked a light shade of purple, People though, appeared to have been dyed various shades of pastel colors, nothing major, like in a comic book, but just enough to be 'off' from normal. He kept blinking, trying to get his eyes to work right, but nothing he did helped.
Polly turned to the beside table, where a pitcher of ice water sat, condensation dripping down the side, forming a small puddle on the table. She poured the water into a styrofoam cup and held it with one and as she pushed the button to raise her husbands bed with the other.
"Here you go, hon. Small sips, o.k.?" she held the cup to his lips, and noticed him blinking, seemingly trying to focus, or clear his vision. "Is there something wrong with your eyes?"
Looking at his wife, Reg tried to explain, "I...I...don't know, everything looks funny... Strange colors. I can't seem to get my eyes to be clear."
"Hmmm..." Polly, sat quietly, trying to restack the papers on her lap, moving them to the bedside table, next to the water.
"What? Does 'Hmmm' mean, Pols?" Reg asked trying to turn towards her, noting for the first time, all the places on his body that were bandaged. Fully awake now, he next examined the XACTO suit. His skin itched, everywhere. He tried to get under it but quickly discovered, to his growing confusion, that he could not. "Polly? What the HELL? What is this stuff? I can't seem to get under it? My skin is itching so bad it feels like ants crawling all over me!"
Having been prepared for some of this, Polly knew when to call the nurse, she reached for the call button and pressed it - somewhere outside the room she heard a panel start to beep. She turned back towards her husband.
Nurse Catrice swept in, "My, my, my chil' you's awake now! Scratchin' like a ol' hound dog! Let me give you somthin' to hep you out." She produced a syringe containing puple liquid, poked it into his IV line, and Reg felt a sudden rush of cool spread through his body, like he had been suddenly plunged in to a cool summer stream.
As the medicine took effect, Polly took a breath. Trying to figure out how to tell her husband all he was facing, not sure that she could.
Still trying, confusedly at the edges of the XACTO fabric, Reg couldn't understand what was going on. "Jesus, this stupid fabric is stuck to me, I see weird colors, my wife seems to be concerned. GOD someone tell me SOMETHING!" he thought to himself.
Polly grabbed his hands, trying to calm him. She began, "Reg, I don't know how else to tell you, there is just so much the doctor tried to explain to me while you were recovering."
"Where should I start?" she said, searching for a good point at which to tell her husband what had happened. "The surgery, that's a good point." she said, more for herself than for Reg. "Your surgery went well, they got all the colon cancer - and none of your other organs are affected - which is good, but they had to treat the other, spreading cancer, with this blue fabric."
Looking at Polly, waiting for more, Reg had relaxed a bit, leaned back into his bed, "I remember him talking about that fabric. It helps deliver my chemotherapy."
"Yes. And. Well. There's more." Polly was still searching for a way to tell him the rest.
"What do you mean, more" Reg said, running his hands over his blue suit, still itching a bit, but not as bad, Reg listened as his wife explained his situation.
"... well Reg, that's about it. The suit that is keeping you alive, is permanent. You will also have to return to the hospital every month to be re-treated in the biomemetic gel tank. You will also experience 'other symptoms' that are unique to your body, and how the DNA has bonded to your system." Polly stopped, reached for he water, her mouth dry from all the explaining.
Reg sat silently, blinking, much has Polly had in Dr. Georges' consultation room, trying to absorb everything he had just heard. He was stuck. Literally. Alive, but stuck none the less. This stupid blue suit, his messed up vision. The incessant itching, "God, what ELSE can happen?" he thought to himself.
Suddenly, Reg sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed and announced. "Help me up, Polly. I gotta get out of this room for a while. I gotta think."
He tried standing, knees wobbly, Polly had to catch him as he steadied himself at his bedside. "Just let me be, Polly. I gotta figure this out for myself." Reg pushed past her heading unsteadily for his door and wandered out into the hallway, and down the corridor.
Once in the hallway, Reg moved slowly along the wall, making his way past the other patient rooms. When he passed he noticed that each patient he saw had their own unique color, some brighter, some more dim, some practically non-existent. From the pieces of conversations he heard in passing from doctors, nurses, and family members he quickly put together the meaning of what he saw. When he did, he simply didn't know how to handle it, so he kept walking.
When he finally stopped walking, he realized he was in a waiting room near the hospitals entrance. He sat there, watching people walking by - each one a shade and intensity of color unique to them. He was finding himself able to guess which ones were the 'patients' and which ones were the 'family'. The sick and the healthy. He had finally given in to the fact that for some reason, this was how he saw things now. How he would always see them. He would know. He could see. Apparently this was the gift and the curse of his new condition. He HOPED that this was where it ended.
He would discover, that he was wrong. There would be much more.
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