Mars Hill Ch. 03

Chemo went exactly as I was expecting. They bring you into this room with lots of lazy boy type chairs, sit you down, hook you up to a machine and pump poison into you. You just hope that you get the cancer before the Chemo gets you.

Since this was my first round of Chemo, I didn't feel any side effects yet. In a few days though I'd feel pretty crappy. Like I said it was poison.

So when that was done I jumped in the car with Becca and we headed out of town. Beth had let us use her camp site again and we just wanted a night to relax before I started feeling sick tomorrow.

I was very nervous.

About an hour after we left Flagstaff we pulled into the camping site we were so familiar with. I set up the tent while Becca moved the firewood. I still wasn't supposed to lift anything heavy for a few more days, so she wouldn't let me help her even after I offered.

As the sun set into the cool fall evening we cuddled close, shoulder to shoulder, by the fire.

"I know this is a bad time to be asking this," I said after the sun was down and the stars filled the night sky. "But I just can't wait any more."

Becca turned to look at me inquisitively.

"I'm not asking you now because of anything to do with my health. I am asking because I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"Um Jeremy...?" Becca asked. I detected a slight shake in her voice.

"Will you marry me?" There. I had done it. I pulled a small ring with an opal in it out from my pocket and held it up for her to see.

"YES! Of course I will!" She threw herself at me and we flopped back onto the ground, lips locked.

After we had come up for air I gave her Grandma's pendant, and she read the note and we both teared up.

Becca pulled me up and toward the tent.

"Just like our first time" she said.

"You sure it's a good idea? The Chemo is going to start to come out through my saliva and stuff soon. Don't want it to affect you."

"Doctors Orders," she said with a wink.

"You're the Doctor." I said with a laugh and let her guide me toward the tent.

It was like the first time all over again, except this time when I got naked my scars weren't something I was ashamed of. I felt like I would never grow tire of Becca's hungry look when she saw me naked. I knew I would never get tired of her slim hips, her small and perfectly proportioned breasts, or the flush of love making on her cheeks.

I nudged her legs apart and this time as my tongue wrote out our names on her clit, I combined our last names, like what might happen when we get married. It was like she could feel it too, because she came very quickly as my tongue danced and my fingers caressed her sides and her nipples.

Being hard as a rock, I crawled up, kissing her as I went. Hips, Belly button, all over the breasts, collar bone, neck, lips, eyes, cheeks. My probing penis found the correct angle and I plunged inside her. She was warm, and tight, and was able to do things to me that were like dealing in a combination on a lock. I my cum flooded into her as she dialled in the last digit on my metaphorical lock. We shuddered together in perfect harmony. Inside of her I began to grow limp. Inside of me, the cancer felt the first brushes of poison and began to fight back.

By the time my third chemo treatment came around I was absolutely feeling the side effects. Vomiting, weakness. Weight loss. Pain all over my body. Everything you can think of.

Radiation treatment was also mixed in. There were days where I could work and days where I could not. I ended up dropping most of my academic classes, but kept plugging away at my thesis. This round of Chemo would be doing by the end of the semester, if things went well I would be able to resume classes in the spring semester and I would only be one semester behind. At least that was the plan.

Becca kept working her usual rotation, and we tried to live a happy and normal life.

A normal life in our case also involved planning a wedding.

"So I'm thinking spring break?" Becca mused at one of our wedding planning meetings.

"I was hoping for sooner."

"Jer it's already almost December. I don't think we can make it happen any faster. It takes time to book and plan for these sorts of things."

"We could elope. Get on a plane somewhere and just do it."

"Like a destination wedding?"

"Sure!"

"Are you sure it's a good idea to for you to travel?"

"Not at all. We could do Vegas though. That's not too far."

"Really? Vegas? What little girl dreams about getting married in Vegas?"

"I don't really think I'm qualified to answer any questions about what girls think," I said with a laugh.

She grinned at me from across the table.

An idea struck me.

"We could do it at the observatory maybe?" I asked. "I mean we would have to ask Beth if we could rent out the library or something. Or do it in the Clark dome."

"You know that's not a bad idea." Becca said. "I mean I don't know about doing it under the Clark, but that would be hilarious really. We will have to ask Beth. But still I can't see getting it all together until March."

As Becca leaned forward to look at some papers I caught a glimpse down her shirt. Aside from noticing she wasn't wearing a bra, I saw that she was wearing my Grandmothers pendant. My grandmother had a fantastic sense of humour, and I think that she would laugh at the thought of her pendant caressing the sides of Becca's bare breasts. I know that I did. Becca was saying something.

"Huh?"

"My eyes are up here Jeremy." Becca said with a present scowl.

"Sorry, I was just enjoying the view."

She laughed. "So spring break?"

"Sure. Sounds like a date." I smiled. Even though I wasn't feeling all that good physically, I still felt content.

"We're supposed to work the observation night in a couple of days. We can talk to Beth then. We need to think about what we are going to wear, invitations, meals, guest list et cetera."

"You mean my Tux T-shirt isn't good enough," I teased.

Becca had just taken a drink and water came out her nose as she cracked up. I loved that I was still making her smile even after all this time together.

Becca and I asked Beth if we could rent out somewhere on the observatory for a few hours for our wedding. Beth said that if she was invited we could have the whole place between closing for the afternoon and opening for evening viewing. We could have it for free if we worked that evening for the public viewing.

Venue problem solved we had to figure out the guest list. Becca and I had both wanted to keep the attendance low.

"I reckon just Mom and Abby." Becca said. "And obviously Beth and Gillian and Sam."

"Ok. Probably just Mom and Dad on my side."

"You aren't going to invite your sisters?"

"I wasn't planning to."

"Jeremy you should."

"But they are brats."

"You haven't really seen them in two years. They are almost 11 now. You should invite them."

I caved. I drafted up invitations on my computer and printed them. We dropped the ones that needed to be mailed off at the post office and hand delivered the local invitations.

The new year came and went. I was getting skinnier and looking more gaunt. I was also feeling weaker. I slept more and more. I decided to only take two classes for the spring semester, banking on feeling better once this round of Chemo was finished in mid January.

When this round of chemo was finished I had another PET scan. The tumours hand't shrunk, but they hadn't grown either.

"We will have to do another round of chemo, with some different medicine in it for this go around." Dr Jones said after giving me the PET results.

"When will it start?" I asked.

"Well I would like to give you 6 weeks off so that you can have some time to recuperate from this round. I think we should start the next round mid March. We can continue with radiation treatment in the meanwhile. How have the nosebleeds been?"

"I still get them, but nothing like that time I had to go to the ER. I still have trouble breathing through just my nose. It's like I'm permanently stuffy."

"But no real change?"

"Not really"

"Ok. Well we will get you booked for another PET scan a week before we start Chemo. I'll see you in March."

Before I knew it it was the day of our wedding. Mom, Aunt G, Sam, Abby and Gwen had taken over our house, kicking me, Dad and the Twins out to spend the day at Aunt G's house. I had picked up my rental tuxedo the day before at the mall. It had been a challenge to find one that would fit me because of the weird weight loss on some parts of my body from the Chemo.

Dad drove us to the observatory in the evening after I had showered, shaved, and changed into the Tux. Everyone else would meet us there. I was nervous. I don't know why. This was something I wanted, had planned for, but I knew that in an hour my life would be changed forever.

When Becca began to walk toward me I couldn't help but begin to cry. I had seen her in her dress before of course, heck I had been there when she had been trying them on, and had to help her pick her dress. But still, here she was. I felt drunk, like I was watching this happen to someone else through my tears. But it wasn't happening to someone else. When she reached me I took her hand and looked down into her brown eyes and smiled at her, cheeks damp. She squeezed my hand and we turned to face the officiant. Since we were both atheists, there was only a few remarks and then our vows.

"I do." She said.

"I do" I said.

And that was that. In the Library on top of Mars Hill we were officially, irrefutably, finally married. And I couldn't have been happier.

We went over to Aunt G's house after the wedding. She had a big backyard and even though it was just barely spring, she rented outdoor heaters and we had a little party.

Mom and Dad met Gwen and Abby. Dad made Becca's Family laugh and Mom got them both talking. Soon enough I was sure they would be swapping stories about Becca and Me growing up.

I had started to feel unwell so I just relaxed on a chair next to Becca and sipped on some water. Everyone else had beer or champagne, but I was barely able to keep my food down so I tried to take it easy. Becca was ecstatic. I was too of course. The last time I had seen her anywhere near being so happy was when I had given her the tickets to Australia.

Aunt G's cat jumped up into my lap and lay across my legs against my belly purring. It was as if she knew my stomach wasn't feeling well and she was trying to help me. I lazily rubbed behind her ears and along her back and she closed her eyes in contentment.

Becca looked over at me. "Grandkitties" she whispered at me. I chuckled and nodded.

Eventually everyone went back to where they were staying and Becca and I went home.

We hung out with our families for a few days. Dad had rented a van so we could all squeeze in. Becca and I showed them the big meteor crater just outside of town and took them for a night to Grand Canyon National Park.

My family went home first. Then Becca's family. And it was over.

My chemo started the day after they left. Becca had driven with Gwen and Abby to LA with a stop in Vegas just for the girls so I was on my own for a few days. I went to class, lead a seminar, worked on my thesis, and was repeatedly poisoned by my Doctor.

Becca and I settled back in to our routine. The routine of our married life was an awful lot like the routine of our engaged life, and the routine of our boyfriend/girlfriend life. The only real difference was I referred to her as my Wife now, and when we took a shower we had to take off and put on our rings.

I registered Becca as my next of kin on my insurance and emergency contact forms at school and in the hospital. She was finally allowed to sit with me during Chemo one session. It was nice to have her there to talk to and joke with while I was hooked to the machine.

A few weeks later we had to file our first taxes as a married couple, something we had spent an entire week figuring out how to do. We used our tax refund to go on a honeymoon. We went in a time between my Chemo treatments. My doctors said I could travel, but they warned me to make sure I had ready access to medical care just in case. And also try to not get sick. And also try to stay somewhere with western medicine.

We had debated going to Chicago to visit my family. Becca was in favour of it, and so was my mom, but I wanted our honeymoon to be somewhere special and just for us.

We chose New York City and Washington D.C. Both were historic cities, which appealed to me, and both had great science attractions like the Haydn Planetarium and the Air and Space museum for Becca.

And spring turned to summer. I kept on getting worse. My tumours had started growing again. They began to think about surgery to try to remove the tumour in my stomach, but decided getting the one on my spine and in my sinuses was too risky. Instead they just increased the dose of Chemo and increased the pace of radiation therapy.

Becca tried not to show me that she was getting worried my deteriorating health situation. I tried to stay positive. I'd been through this before. Last time it got way worse than this before it started to get better. And like I thought it kept getting worse.

By summer I was gaunt and weak. Pretty close to what I had been looking like last time before I started to get better. I held out hope that I would begin to get better soon, but so far there was no sign of it happening.

Becca helped. She helped a lot. But when I looked at her I felt guilty. I was spiralling downward and had dragged her into it. I had married her when I knew I was very sick. I also knew I was being an idiot. She knew as well as I did that I was sick and that things might not go the way we wanted. I also knew that if she were sick instead of me I would be there for her as much as she was currently being there for me. I hoped for a someday where I could be there for her, unconditionally, lovingly, to show her how much her help meant to me.

She kept excelling at her career. She had already been given full funding for a new project. She couldn't tell me what it was, but she had flown around the country giving briefings to scholars and military brass. I was so proud of her.

I went to work excited for her to come home from one of these trips. I got to my office and graded some papers before heading out for lunch with my advisor. I went over how things were going with her, and she gave me some tips on research and writing techniques that would help to improve the draft of the thesis I had turned in. I was happy that I was making some progress on it, and thought about how I was going to incorporate that advice into my draft. I had only ordered a salad, but when it came I wasn't hungry. I picked at it while Dr Jansen ate her sandwich. The look of the food was nauseating to me. I didn't want to seem rude so I ate a small bit of lettuce. I felt it going down my throat and made a sickening splash as it entered my stomach. I immediately began to gag.

"Excuse me," I said turning to go to the men's room.

I pushed through the door and staggered toward the sink, heaving. No chance of making it to the toilet. I threw up. Red and watery vomit filled the sink. I threw up again. More red, with a lone piece of lettuce floating in the sink. Again. And again. I felt lightheaded and my last thought was of hitting the blood covered floor.

I woke up in the ICU. Wires were attached to my chest. I had two IV lines, one in each arm attached to big bags of fluids. A steady beep of the cardiac monitor assured me that I was indeed still alive. I fumbled with both hands looking for the call button. They always had it hooked over the bed rails somewhere within easy reach so you could let the nurses know when you woke up. I finally found it and pressed the big red button on it's surface.

Within seconds a nurse came in to check up on me. I tried to sit up but a tearing pain ripped through my abdomen and I flopped back down.

"Don't try to move on your own, that's probably going to hurt a lot. Let me help you" the nurse said, lifting the head of my bed up a few inches so I was no longer completely prone.

"How long have I been out?" I asked.

"About three days." He said. I looked past him and out of the window which I could now see. Through the glass I saw office towers and a sprawling city.

"Phoenix?" I asked.

"Yeah the hospital there had you helicoptered down here once it was decided that the only way to stop the bleeding would be to remove the tumour on your stomach. The doctors up there felt that you would do better having one of our doctors do the surgery since we do this kind of thing far more often than they do."

"Did anyone call my wife?"

"Yes. We pulled your next of kin information from your insurance company."

I sighed with relief.

"How did the surgery go?"

"They got most of the tumour, but unfortunately they found another tumour while they were scanning you. I will have to get the doctor to give you more information."

The nurse left and I stared out the window. I had been hoping that the surgery would help fix me just like last time. The thought occurred to me then, that really it hadn't cured me. This was the same bout of cancer I had last time.

Hours later the surgeon came into the room to look at my incision and make sure it was healing ok. He told me that during an after surgery scan they had noticed another tumour, this time on my heart. He said he was sorry to have to deliver that news and that after a few more days of observation they would be sending me back to Flagstaff and the doctors there would give me more information on my options.

Becca came by that evening.

"How are you feeling?" She asked softly.

"Like a big bag of shit."

"You really scared me."

"I'm sorry. I just wanted really badly to ride in a helicopter."

She smiled a small smile at the joke. "Did they say when you would be getting to go home?"

"Another day or so."

"Ok. Do you want me to come visit you here again?"

"God of course I do. I want you to be with me and never leave me alone again. But my practical side says it's stupid for you to drive 8 hours round trip to only be allowed to spend 15 minutes with me before they kick you out for the day. I'll be fine and if anything happens I will call you. Shit, I'll probably call you anyway because I miss you too much."

She sat with me for the rest of the 15 minutes they would allow someone to visit in the ICU before they kicked her out. She sent me a text when she got home and we just texted for most of the rest of the night. I dozed but the pain in my belly from the surgery kept me from getting a good nights sleep.

Three days later they let me go. Becca drove down and picked me up and took me home. She gave me a light meal before I fell asleep exhausted. There is something about being in your own bed that makes you able to sleep better.

I saw Dr Jansen a few days later.

"Look Jeremy it seems like nothing we are doing is working. Your most recent scan from Phoenix is showing new tumours on your heart, liver, colon and hip. The tumours we already knew about are growing again."

"Ok so what can we do to cure me?"

She looked down at her desk, took a breath and then looked back up at me.

"I'm sorry. You probably only have another 4-6 weeks. We can offer you palliative chemotherapy to help you feel ok, but there is very little chance that this will be cured."

Becca and I cried all night. Then I called my parents and the crying started all over again. I kept apologizing to Becca. I loved her so much. I didn't want her to be hurt from me dying. I had promised her a full life with me, and now I was reneging on my word.