It was the first week of May, 9 weeks after Nicky's brain surgery, and Rory found herself sitting in the hospital one morning with Nicky who was having a chemo treatment. While he was getting his infusion, Dr Browne came in to check on him. The hope was that she'd decide that he was recovered enough from his surgery to be able to go back to school. Rory was fine with him staying home longer, but he really wanted to go back even if there were only a few weeks until summer vacation.
"Nicky, can you tilt your head forward so I can see your scar?" Dr Browne asked. Nicky had a long surgical scar along the back of his head that extended halfway down the back of his neck.
Nicky looked down at his feet.
"His incision is healing nicely" Dr Browne said. "Eventually his hair will grow longer and cover most of the scar. It'll likely only be visible on his neck, but I don't think it'll be too prominent"
Rory nodded.
"Am I allowed to go to school now?" Nicky asked.
"There are no neurological deficits and while I noticed that he does still have some weakness on his left side, it's improving. As far as recovering from his surgery goes, I'm giving the all clear to resume normal activity, but should also check with Dr Johnson to be safe"
"Thank you" Rory said.
"Of course. Good luck" Dr Browne said before leaving the room.
"Mommy, are they gonna take the needle out today?" Nicky asked. He had a port in his chest to get the chemo. At the beginning of a chemo cycle a nurse would use a needle to access it. That needle was attached to a small tube that would stay there until the end of the cycle. They would give him the chemo through it but also draw blood and give other medications. Since this was the first treatment in the cycle they'd only accessed the port a few minutes earlier.
"They just put it there today" Rory said. "They're gonna cover it with the clear tape and it's gonna stay there for a little while"
"Are they gonna take out the one in my nose?"
"Bubba, they can't take that one out unless you eat" Rory said. She knew that Nicky didn't like the NG tube, but it was unfortunate needed since he was eating less than one meal a day.
"I don't want to" Nicky said. It wasn't just that he didn't want to. The chemo made him nauseous, and sick. When he first started the treatments he'd throw up anything he ate. After that he stopped wanting to eat anything.
"I know, but that means that you need the feeding tube. Right?"
Nicky nodded.
By the end of the 3 hour treatment Nicky was exhausted. As soon as they got home, Rory gave Nicky his anti nausea medicine and his pain meds before he got into bed. Logan was at work, Grace was at school, and Sammy was with Honor, so once Nicky was situated Rory went downstairs to get some housework done.
Around 1pm, Rory went to check on Nicky to find that he wasn't in his room. She went to check if he was in the playroom, but on her way there she saw him in her bedroom. She went into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed next to where Nicky was asleep. She gently stroked his cheek with the back of her finger. "Hey" she said softly.
"Mmm" Nicky groaned and rolled over to face away from her.
"Do you wanna come eat some lunch?" Rory asked. She knew that he wouldn't want to and she hated that she had to wake him up to ask a question she knew the answer to, but the goal was to get rid of the feeding tube and in order to do that Nicky had to be eating enough solid food to not need it anymore.
"No"
"Ok" Rory said. She noticed that he'd brought his water bottle into the room with him so she grabbed it off the bedside table and gave it to him. "Drink some water please" she said. Nicky took a few sips of water before giving it back to Rory. "Is there anything you do want?"
"Um...orange juice" Nicky said.
"We don't have orange juice" Rory said. The kids drank orange juice at Luke's diner sometimes, but for the most part they either drank water or apple juice that was mixed with water. They never really had orange juice in the house because nobody drank it. "Do you want apple juice?"
Nicky shook his head.
"What if I send daddy a text and ask him to get some orange juice on his way home?" Rory asked. "He's going to pick up Grace and Sammy and he'll be home soon. Do you want him to get you some orange juice?"
"But without the pieces"
"Ok" Rory said.
An hour later Logan walked into the house with Grace and a gallon of orange juice.
"Orange juice" Logan said and put the bottle on the counter.
"You realize that Nicky's the only one drinking this, right?" Rory asked with a chuckle
"I do, but they didn't have a smaller one" Logan said. He noticed Rory staring at the bottle. "What?"
"It's not no pulp" Rory said. "He doesn't like it with the pulp"
"Oh yeah, I know" Logan said. "They didn't have no pulp so I got what they had and I'm just gonna strain it"
"You're gonna strain it?"
"Yeah, I'll just pour it though a sieve, into a bowl, and once it's pulp free I'll put it back in the bottle"
Rory smiled.
"What?"
"You're a good dad"
A little while later Rory left to go pick up Sammy.
"Hey, come on in" Honor said when she opened the door.
"Was he ok?" Rory asked.
"He was great" Honor said. "Sammy, look who's here"
"Mama!" Sammy said excitedly and ran over to Rory.
"Hi baby" Rory picked him up and he put his head down on her shoulder. "I see you're still wearing the same pants that daddy put on you this morning. That's good"
"It's very good" Honor said. Nathan was 12, so it had been a long time since Honor had to deal with a halfway potty trained toddler. "He also told me good job for going to the bathroom so that was kind of weird"
"Yeah, he says it to us too. The kids think it's hilarious" Rory said. "Anyway, thanks for watching him"
"Of course" Honor said. "How's Nicky?"
"They changed some of his meds so that hopefully the chemo won't affect him as much" Rory told her. "That stuff hits his little body like a ton of bricks. We go to the hospital, they check his blood, and then we have to watch all of his energy leave his body over the course of a few hours. It completely drains him"
"You'll let me know if there's anything you guys need, right?" Honor asked
Rory nodded. "Thank you"
"I'm serious. Anything you need"
——
A few days later Rory, Logan, and the kids were sitting at the kitchen table, eating dinner. Nicky always wanted to sit with everyone even if he wasn't gonna eat, but since he was sitting there, Rory and Logan always gave him a plate with the hope that he might decide to eat something.
"Sammy, you have to use the spoon" Nicky said to Sammy who was having little success in eating his rice with a fork.
"It's a fork" Sammy said
Nicky laughed. "I know it's a fork, but you need to use a spoon so your rice doesn't fall"
"No" Sammy shook his head.
Logan chuckled. "What do you guys think about watching a movie after dinner?" He asked and signed.
"Nemo!" Grace shouted.
"Yeah, Nemo" Nicky said.
"Alright, so we'll all get in pajamas and then we can watch Nemo" Logan said. It was pretty much guaranteed that at least 2 of the kids would fall asleep during the movie so putting them in pajamas first made it easier to just put them in bed after.
"Can we have popcorn?" Nicky asked.
"We can definitely have popcorn" Rory said. That was the first time in months that he'd actually asked to eat something so Rory was more than happy to let him have it.
"But Sammy's not allowed to have popcorn" Nicky said.
"We'll get him something else" Logan said.
After dinner Rory took Grace and Sammy upstairs to get them ready for bed before the movie while Logan gave Nicky his medicine.
"Can I do it?" Nick asked.
"You can help" Logan said and put a bunch of syringes and 3 pills on the island in front of where Nicky was sitting. "Do you remember what goes where?" He asked. Nicky had some medications that he took every single day either my mouth or through the feeding tube, but he also had some that he only took on weeks that he was getting chemo.
Nicky shook his head.
"The purple ones go in your feeding tubes and the green ones go in your chest" Logan said. They had different colored syringes in order to keep track of what was what. "Do you wanna take your pills first?"
"No, the pills have to go last" Nicky said.
"Ok, so let's do the ones in your chest first" Logan said.
One all 3 kids were in pajamas and Nicky had taken all of his meds, they all got cozy on the couch to watch Finding Nemo.
By the end of the movie all 3 kids were asleep. After they got the kids in bed, Rory and Logan got into bed themselves.
"So, I was thinking that we should do something this summer" Rory said. "I know that traveling is out of the question because Nicky needs to be able to go to his appointments, but that doesn't mean we can't do anything"
"What did you have in mind?" Logan asked
"It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but with everything that's happened I wanna make sure that our kids have some good memories too. Especially Nicky. I don't want him to look back on his childhood and only remember the cancer" Rory said. Sammy wouldn't remember the times he was in the hospital, but Nicky would. He would remember the needle sticks, and the treatments, and the surgeries. Rory didn't want that to be the only thing he remembered from his childhood.
"We'll find something special to do with them"