Worst Patient Ever

Cindy is hooking up a bag of antibiotics. I don't know what they are specifically, but I understand what they're meant to do. It's almost as if we've created an artificial immune system. We are kind of taking a kitchen sink approach, trying to keep any number of different general, multi-purpose antibiotics trucking around inside of my body, picking up the slack for my non-existent polys.

It takes a few minutes. She'll need to remove the empty bag, all flattened out, then check my other lines. She adjusts the clamps, speeding up one drip, slowing down another. She moves one smaller bag to a different hook, making room for the new antibiotics.

"Cindy?" I ask. I'm just killing time. "What are some of your other patients like?"

She smiles.

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno. I mean, are they as big a pain in the ass as I am?"

"You're not a pain in the ass, Robert."

"But you're in here ALL the time." It's true. She is. "You probably don't have any time to take care of anybody else."

"So?"

I don't know where I'm going with this. Just fishing for compliments, I think, trying to feel like less of a burden. Is it the drugs or the long days or the steely resolve of absolute certainty in the face of a hella lot of uncertainty? I get tired and sad. I will feel, sometimes, as though I'm this unbelievably heavy rock that's been lashed around my family and friends, and I'm just dragging everybody down with me. I mean, I can't f***ing die. Imagine what it would do to them.

Even Cindy and Anne. I know it's their job to care for me, but I also know that it's been becoming about more than just the daily grind for both of them. How do you distance yourself from your work when you're in the care-giving business? It's intrinsic, isn't it? You have to care about people, don't you?

"So?" Cindy asks again.

"Tell me about your worst patient. Your absolute worst patient ever."

She laughs. "It's not you, if that's what you're getting at."

My turn to laugh, now. She's sharp.

"I'm just curious."

"Okay," she says. She sits at the edge of my bed. "This was a few years ago. Different people react to the news differently. Some people deal with it okay, but some people get very angry. We had this guy, some kind of lawyer, I think, who seemed angry to begin with, but got worse as his treatment progressed."

"What kind of cancer did he have?"

"Lung cancer. He was a heavy smoker. He'd had to get a tracheotomy, and he hated that, too. He was very, very angry about the whole thing. So whenever we had to clean his site, or take his temp, he'd spit out blood or phlegm at us, through the tube."

"He'd what?

"Yeah, I know," she says. "He was very mean-spirited. I think he was used to being in control. He couldn't control his cancer, and it made him angry, so he took it out on us."

I can't think of what to say. It pisses me off that somebody would treat my nurse so badly. I'm so possessive all of a sudden, so Mr. Shocked that anybody could have ever been so awful to my lifeline, Cindy, who has never been anything but kind and generous.