Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

943 BREATHE DEEPLY NOW

BREATHE DEEPLY NOW

I don't know why everything involving my family required a negotiation. Agreeing on who was going in which car to Pizza Hut could be more complicated than the Warsaw Pact. Actually, I do know why: it's because Claire could never just let anything happen. She had to be managing everything, all the time. When we were kids I guess it just seemed natural that our mother was bossing us around constantly, telling us where (and how) to sit, what to do, what not to do, etc.

As adults it was more glaringly obvious. Especially when that adult was Remo and he was trying to change lanes on the highway.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you about chemo first.

This is not a cheerful subject–and it especially wasn't back in 1991 when the survival rate for a lot of cancers was worse than it is now. So I understand if you want to skip ahead. I sure as hell wanted to.

I probably could have gotten out of going with her for her treatment that day, if I didn't mind having a prolonged negotiation about it. It was easier to just accept that if we'd come all this way to face this, shying away from it would be pointless. Claire fussed only a little about who was coming along: but in the end was partly pleased to be accompanied by three "handsome fellows." (Her words, I swear.) In my mind it was Remo to support her, me to support Remo, and Ziggy to support me, but if she wanted to think of us as her entourage? Fine. Knowing she was dying made me cut her a lot of slack.

We had to get up early for the drive to the treatment center, which was on the outskirts of Memphis. Remo drove, and I slept most of the way leaning against a car door, and Ziggy slept leaning against me.

The treatment center wasn't a hospital itself, but a separate building, one story brick with an angled brown roof. From the outside it could have been a law office or a veterinary clinic or any number of things. Inside it was split into two sections: the waiting room and the treatment area.

We started in the waiting area and a young woman in a maroon scrubs top brought Claire a clipboard.

Claire glanced at it. "Oh, but I've filled this out before," she said, trying to hand it back. "I was just here last week, remember?"

The woman, who had a pen stuck through her auburn ponytail, blinked at her. "Um, ma'am, we still need you to sign the liability waiver each time, and to confirm your weight."

"Oh, well. In that case." She plucked the attached pen from the holder on top of the clipboard and settled herself primly with the clipboard on her knees as she checked off the boxes and signed her name.

They had her step onto a scale as they took us into the treatment room. All three of us looked away from the number.

The treatment area took up most of the interior of the building. Each patient had a large reclining chair, the kind they advertise during football games. The walls were done in wood paneling and there weren't dividers between the treatment stations. As a nurse or assistant or whatever she was brought her to a treatment chair, Claire said, like she would to a hostess in a restaurant, "Oh, could we have the one in the corner? That would be so much nicer."

"Sure," the woman said, and ushered us to the one Claire had indicated. There was only one smaller chair beside it for a visitor. Remo took his place in it while Ziggy and I hovered. The woman ignored us. Another technician of some kind came next, I think... I was still pretty sleepy at that point. My impression was that her actual doctor wasn't here or anything like that. This was just to get pumped full of chemicals that the doctor ordered.

Pump isn't quite the right word. I guess it's more like drip. A slow drip. There were a couple of people being treated already when we got there, and room for five or six more. I wondered if it would fill up.