Chronically Devoted by Hayley Phelps

Chronically Devoted

My phone blared its’ maddening alarm at six o’clock in the morning. The same time it goes off every morning. At this point it is becoming harder and harder to force myself out of the comfort of my bed every morning. The only thing that motivates me is the fact that after my torturous twelve hour shift at The Diner, where I serve arrogant red necks all day, I get to see Mickey.

            Everything was perfect until we got “the news.” He had been sick for a while, but we never thought anything of it until it got unmanageably worse.  It started with fatigue, and slight malaise. It wasn’t a big deal at first. “Maybe you’re just tired from the extra shifts you’ve been taking at the pharmacy,” I’d say. I felt slightly liable for him not going to the doctor sooner, but he assured me that he would have put it off anyways. I think we were both in denial for the longest time that something was actually wrong. A whole year went by until the larger symptoms started to progress. Bruises began to cover his body, and he became extremely weak. He complained of bone, joint, and abdominal pain. By this time he had gone from a healthy 165 to a weight of only 130. I knew he was ill, but it terrified me to think of what could actually be wrong with him.

Finally he was hospitalized. “Leukemia,” is what the doctor diagnosed him with. “I am terribly sorry to tell you this news,” the doctor spoke. “Unfortunately, it is chronic myeloid leukemia, or CML, and all we can do is treat it and hope for the best outcome,” he went on.  “We will start chemotherapy immediately” he said. I didn’t know much about leukemia at the time, but I knew that if the treatment involved chemo the illness had to be bed, especially bad since the specific type had the word chronic in it.

My eyes started to tear up just visualizing that day in my head. That day changed everything. The picture of the rest of my life, as I had imagined it before, shattered in my head. No more house in the mountains of Colorado, no more extravagant winter wedding like we had both agreed on, and no more family of our own. Of course, there is the possibility that he will overcome this illness, but even if he does, there’s no way we could ever repay all of the medical bills, and have the extra money to live out our dreams.

That’s mainly why I started working at The Diner. Ever since Mickey has been diagnosed, he has been unable to continue working at the pharmacy on 50^th Street where we was a pharmacy tech. Unfortunately that job is what paid most of our bills. Because of this, I have been forced to drop out of school. My lifelong dream of being a general surgeon shut down by my devotion to Mickey. I worked my ass off to support the two of us, and what would the outcome be? Only time would tell. All I could do is hope and pray to God that Mickey would miraculously overcome this tragic illness.

            Six months have gone by since Mickey has been diagnosed with leukemia. He is now well enough to stay at home with me again, and has been for the past three months. “Can we please swing through Del Taco before go to the doctor?” he asked me. It’s so hard to tell him no. He’s still so charming, even after all the hair and weight loss from chemotherapy. “You know you’ll only get sick when we get to the doctor. Maybe we can pick some up afterward,” I say. I don’t know why, but I have an odd feeling that something bad is going to happen soon. This feeling attacked me out of nowhere as if I were its’ prey, the predator being fear. I grab Mickey’s hand as we pull into the parking lot of the hospital. Hand in hand we walk through the spinning doors of the front entrance of the hospital. We walk to the elevators, press floor eleven, and ascend to the same place we’ve been going for what seems like forever now. It’s becoming somewhat of a routine now, to do this every Wednesday. We drive fifteen minutes to and from the hospital, and everything within those two car trips is the same every time, even crossing over Wingate Bridge, the tallest bridge in town. Just when you think things are finally looking up and starting to get better life has a funny way of slapping you in the face, and saying “Nope not today.”

            We wait patiently, like always, in the waiting room. “Penne,” a red haired nurse announces Mickey’s last name to the waiting room. We stand up to follow the nurse, and she greets us with a kind smile. I smile back even though I have no desire too. The doctor enters faster than usual today. I could immediately tell he had something bad to say from the overly sympathetic expression on his face. Apparently Mickey could tell too, “What is it today Doc?” he asked. “We have unfortunate news regarding your chemo progression,” the doctor said. Mickey’s eyes began to tear up. It broke my heart to see him like that. “Go on,” Mickey said. “The chemotherapy is not having the effects that we had hoped it would. Your body has built up somewhat of a resistance to the medications. Your only option now is to undergo a stem cell transplant procedure. My heart shattered as Mickey walked out of the room slamming the door behind him. He and I both knew that finding a stem cell donor would be impossible. His parents had died in a fire when he was ten, and they were all he had. I drove our car off of Wingate Bridge that day. Mickey and I both inside.