Stump the Doctor

Today I stumped the doctor. It wasn’t Dr. Blue-and-Brown, because he was taking a well-deserved holiday. It was a younger, paler doctor, who smiled less and whose eyebrows gathered in gloom and doubt when I described my particular side effects. I’d done my homework and read the notebook, and it did mention that some people felt tingling and numbness in their extremities. One woman I know even had to stop her treatment because she was losing the use of her legs. They were slowly dying. Don’t you love how the doctors have to tell you all the things that can go wrong with you when you start your treatment? It’s not like you have a whole lot of choice, after all. “Take this stuff, which is our best shot, or die.” I’d rather not know, to tell the truth, but take it when it comes. How does anyone prepare for the hard stuff, anyway? And besides, I never manage to follow protocol.

Like I said, I stumped the doctor. I assumed that technically mouths could be considered extremities. They are kind at the end of something and have lots of extra nerves, like hands and feet. So it did not surprise me when my mouth went tingly, then numb, even though my fingers stayed spry. All I could taste was tomato soup. My friend Jana said someone she knew had gone through the same thing and recommended a powder, which I’m trying.  So I’m not the first one, just the first one Canadian doctors have heard of—they’re obviously not reading my Update that has Americans on it. Dr. Gloom kept asking me questions to see if he’d heard straight. “Two weeks, you figure?” He said. He took notes. I stayed firm in the face of doubters.

He offered me a prescription mouthwash with steroids and…numbing agents. Hmmm. Dr. B&B’s nurse, who checks my meds, wrote the powder name down to see if it would interfere with anything. Here’s the name: L-Glutamine. You’d think they’d know about these things, these cancer experts, but maybe there are too many alternatives to keep up with, and, anyway, alternatives don’t seem to be in the job description. The staff is busy enough.

Reminds me of the rivalry between home schoolers and public schoolers. Seems to me they learn from each other and keep each other honest: the home schoolers--bursting with new ideas and innovations because who’s to stop these keener moms from trying cool ideas on their flesh and blood--show the teachers what’s possible; and the licensed teachers, trained to apply proven, integrated methodology to thousands of kids, do the testing, and write the reports, and scramble to carry the nation’s educational burden and get the job done for us all. If they saw themselves on the same side, wouldn’t that be good. If my medical team knew all the good alternatives out there, and I didn’t have to struggle through the ads and research myself, wouldn’t that be good.

My chemo is done for today: those long hours beside a window, beside a parking lot whose residents come toward me in slow-walking pairs and wheelchairs. There are dozens of us here after the holiday. Men, women, young, old, mostly old. I never see children, who’d make me cry. The nurses are hopping, but Sheila still takes time to wheel in a chair, so I don’t have to lie flat for five hours and hold the laptop over my head, chemo tubes dangling. The guy next to me comes in alone, and gets his lab results back, and finds out his platelet count is too low (is 38 low? I know nothing of these numbers, but he does now), and something else is low too, and makes him light-headed and he's offered a transfusion instead of his infusion. He’ll have to take more days off work. How does he do this?

Before I leave, the gong sounds. The entire ward breaks out in cheers and applause. We know. She’s done. And she’s moving on to surgery or radiation or just waiting to see if her percentages hold. Will she survive the 5 year mark, and sit in a caregiver chair, or will she put on a yellow vest and a big smile, and bring us protein drinks and coffee? Because we all have stories. And we all have hope. And in some way every one of us has stumped the doctor and wants an alternative we aren’t getting.