I have been in the hospital for 5 days now. On Saturday, I was taken to the emergency room after feeling weak and not being able to swallow food or water, and was diagnosed with mucositis ( the painful swelling and blistering of the mucous membranes that coat the digestive tract, a common side effect of chemotherapy). I am in severe pain. This is my 3rd trip to hospital in 2 weeks. I am so dehydrated that I can barely stand for more that a few minutes without getting dizzy. It is difficult to talk, my speech is slurred, and I’ve been told that I hardly sound like myself. My face is puffy and red. I can’t really open my mouth, let alone swallow my own spit. Instead, a suction wand (like the kind they use at the dentist) drains my mouth and all the spit goes into a little bucket at the side of my bed. I like watching the spit level rise. Right now it’s at 350 mL. The only thing I am eating or drinking is popsicles. I just hold them up to my mouth and let them melt away as they numb my gums. The pain in my mouth and throat is partially being controlled by morphine—lots of morphine. I am on a continuous morphine drip and in addition, I have a special button near my bed that allows me to add a little boost of extra morphine every 10 minutes for when I really need it. Every so often, when I reach over to press the button to increase my morphine intake, I recall a specific memory of my friend Linzey, the one with a brain tumor, who I have mentioned before in a previous post.
Never in my life had I seen anyone in that state. There she lay, motionless, eyes fixed on the television. I noticed that she had gained weight; her petite body was now heavy. The circles under her eyes had never been this dark. Her breathing was heavy, and it was clear that she had never been this weak in her life. When she finally noticed my presence, I tried talking to her, but I realized that she was too weak to respond. I found myself telling her things, to deflect my real thoughts. Occasionally her head slightly nodded in response to certain things I told her. Suddenly, I saw her struggling to get a groaning sound to come from her mouth. I was in the room alone with her. Fear struck me, and I was unable to move. It was obvious that she needed something, but I wasn’t sure what that something was. I tried to ask her to point at what she wanted, but she just kept breathing heavily. I feared that if I left the room to go get her mom, she would be alone, and even though it was only for a slight moment, who knows what could have happened? After realizing that it was the only thing I could do, I frantically sprinted around the house looking for her mom. I told her that Linzey needed something but I didn’t know how to help her. Her mom followed me into the room, and I was relieved to see Linzey in the same position as I left her, heavily breathing away. It was almost as if a mother read her daughter’s mind. She knew exactly what Linzey wanted. After rummaging around in a bedside drawer, she pulled out a clear syringe, filled with a liquid form of morphine. I turned away as she emptied the liquid in Linzey’s mouth, drop by drop, drugging away the pain. All of that time I had just spent with Linzey, she was suffering, and I had not even realized it
During both moments, the present and the one described above, I am experiencing pain. Currently, I am experiencing the same physical torture that Linzey was so familiar with. I am building up a tolerance to morphine, and thus must take higher doses every day for it to be effective. Side effects of this medicine include a swollen red face and itchy skin. I am on even more medicine to counter these side effects, each of which have side effects of their own. When I recall this one particular snippet of my time with Linzey, I experience a much different type of pain, one of hopelessness and fear. There was absolutely nothing I could do to help my friend. Linzey passed away before I was able to visit her again.
I was planning to go to San Antonio with my mentor tomorrow to present some psychology research that I’ve been working on for an entire year, but that now seems impossible. My situation, unlike Linzey’s is merely a waiting game, a test of my strength and patience before my white blood cell counts rise.
