We were expecting a short follow-up trip to the hospital. Things seemed to be going well. He had to follow-up weekly with BMT to make sure his counts were high enough to be mingling with the real world.
We arrived promptly at 10:00 a.m. In and out. In and out. That's all we were thinking. We had made plans to go out to lunch when we were done. We drew his blood at home and dropped it off at the lab on our way upstairs to the BMT unit. It was supposed to be faster that way.
His counts came back reasonable. This was good news.
They wanted to give him a dose of methotrexate while his counts were good (this is bad news). Methotrexate is a chemotherapy agent they had injected into him numerous times before. This particular agent was meant for his spinal fluid to make sure no disease lived on in hiding in his spine. He was visibly upset. The doctors left the room. Andrew vomited. It was the first time in months that he had vomited. The mere thought of more methotrexate was nauseating for him.
We had thought the days of chemotherapy were long gone. We thought that chapter was finished.
We were wrong.
We walked out of the hospital at 2:30. While waiting for the elevator on the fifth floor, an older gentleman and his daughter joined us. He was also a transplant patient. The signature bone marrow transplant mask gave it away. His daughter looked to be about our age. The man looked at Andrew in his mask. He said painfully, "You're much too young to be going through this. How old are you?" Andrew answered that he was 23. The man shook his head. His daughter stared in disbelief. We both offered a casual uncomfortable smile. The man shook his head. "You kids should never have to go through this. This should happen to old farts like me.... not kids your age."
All I could say was, "No. Nobody should ever have to go through this." It was not just a comment to be nice or polite. I meant it.
We rode down the elevator in silence. Neither of us had much of an appetite. We just went home.
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