Her Cancer Story (completed)

Day Six

For some leukemics, chemotherapy symptoms come days, and sometimes weeks, early. This especially occurs in the rare types like APL.
So, on day six i work up with clumps of brown hair scattered around my pillow. I wasn't surprised but called Perkins in to change my bed sheets. I took this time to wash off my itchy body by taking a warm bath.
A bathing nurse helped me into the bathtub after carrying me out of my bed- because I was so weak. She sponge bathed me in soapy water that smelled of lilacs. After you've been in the hospital countless of times, you don't feel awkward around the bathing nurses when you are naked. This is their job and they are here to help you. When she gently washed my hair with the bubbly shampoo, big wads of clumped hair came out.
She didn't apologize and nor did I because we both knew it was going to happen. After my bath, what was left of my hair were a few blonde wispy fringes and a few awkward clumps of hair. Without saying a word, Bathing Nurse Natty started to shave my head a smooth, silky cut. After she rubbed my head with organic oils.
Back into my fresh sheets in my bed, I put my oxygen mask back on and fell asleep.
When I woke up I found myself itching my left cheek. I realized Perkins must have put a feeding tube in me when I crashed. When I blinked open my eyes Mother was there reading a magazine with her legs crossed.
I shifted slightly in my bed to let her know I was awake. She looked up and pulled her chair closer to my bed.
"Hey, honey, how are you feeling? Tired? Perkins put a feeding tube in you yesterday when you fell asleep. She told me you haven't ate anything since you have been here!"
I moaned. My head and my chest and everything in my whole body hurt like hell. I didn't care that I was being fed by a tube or that it was yesterday that I took that bath and that I didn't know where my dad or Jonah was.
I screamed in pain and ripped my throat raw as flaming acid burst through my veins and caught me on fire. My whole body thrashed and burned and itched and burned as the unbearable pain burst through my whole body.