"Roxy, you know that I will pay you whether you're working or not right now, don't you?" asked Dr. Egbert. "You can go be with your daughter,"
"Thank you," she said, shifting back and forth on her feet, "But I think Rose needs some space from me. I want to be with her, I do, but I get the feeling that it's better that I let her have time to herself. I don't want to leave her alone in the building, and I really need to keep myself busy so I don't drive myself insane. So, I'd prefer if I could still work,"
"You can adjust your schedule however you like. Dirk and Porrim are completely supporting you. You can skip out on doing your rounds whenever you want and I'll have them take over,"
"Thank you," she said. "I'm going to go see if she wants anything," Roxy walked into Rose's room.
"Dirk picked you up another book for when you want it," she smiled, placing it down on the nightstand beside Rose. It was right next to the bouquet of roses with a card, signed from Jade, Dave, and John, telling her to feel better because they loved her, and that they were always there for her and missed her.
"Thanks, Mom," Rose was lying in the hospital bed hooked up to an IV. The drab room at least looked a little better since Dirk had picked up a pink blanket from their house that Rose had knitted, in hopes of making Rose warm and comfy.
"Are the colours of yarn we have here good? I can get you whatever you want,"
"They're fine, Mom. Thanks," Rose answered expressionlessly.
"Do you know what you want for dinner?"
"Anything's fine,"
"Okay. Can I get you anything at all? Maybe we could play a game?"
"I'm okay, Mom,"
"Alright. Dr. Egbert organized so that your friends will visit you tomorrow,"
"That's nice,"
"I love you, Rose," said Roxy, heading back out of her room.
"I love you, too, Mom," Roxy wanted a drink. But, then what would she do? Just sit around and cry beside Rose like she did last night? She couldn't keep putting her through that. She needed to at least attempt focusing on her work, so she went to check on her osteosarcoma patient.
"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" asked Roxy. Rufioh looked up at her for a moment, but she could tell he didn't want to take his eyes off of Tavros. It always hurt her to see the worry and concern in the parents eyes. She could tell that he was feeling Tavros' pain.
"Just did chemo. He threw up a minute ago, so I'm going to give him some Kytril," said Dirk.
"I can get that for him," said Roxy calmly taking over and applying a transdermal patch to Tavros' left arm.
"Roxy, Karkat came down with another fever before I started here. I was going to go check on him when I was done. Would you like to go do that now? Or you could stay and finish up, and I'll go. Whatever you want," said Dirk.
"Yeah, I'll go take care of that in just a minute," she said, gently stroking the side of Tavros' face, and then looking over his chart before stepping out. Rufioh was a much easier parent to deal with, but she understood that it would be easiest for Dirk to finish up Tavros' care. It was best to have the consistency of the same nurse performing the treatment. Now she had to face the nonstop questions and concerns of Kankri and Aranea. It's good that the parents make sure they're completely aware of what's going on with their child, she knew that, but these two were just so demanding of answers. She picked up Karkat's chart on the door and read over what she'd missed from the past two days. Dirk had signed off on Karkat having a 38.6 fever. She sighed. It had only been two weeks since his last fever. She smiled as she entered the room.
"Good afternoon," She barely had a chance to say anything when Aranea started ranting about the patterns of Karkat's fever and if that meant that his lymphoma was progressing.
"The presence of B symptoms don't necessarily mean he's getting worse, but it's not a good sign," said Roxy calmly.
"Last night he got extremely sweaty again. He's been having night sweats almost every day this week," added Kankri.
"I understand. Karkat, what do you want to get out of the way first? Should I feel your lymph nodes or take your temperature?" Karkat thought for a second, and with a frustrated look on his face answered,
"Temperature,"
"Alright," She sat down beside him on his bed and put his thermometer in his mouth.
"38.7," she read off to his parents before she began to feel the sides of his neck. His lymph nodes there were extremely swollen, and the hot feel of his skin was heart wrenching.
"No changes so far," she said to his anxiously watching parents as she undid his hospital gown in the front. She felt along his collarbones, and down to his chest. He was still perfectly normal there, besides the extra heat radiating from him due to the fever. She moved the back of his hospital gown down a bit so she could feel his armpits.
"His axillary lymph nodes are still very swollen, but everything else is fine so far," she said as she undressed him completely and pressed along his groin.
"Slight swelling in his inguinal lymph nodes. All in all, no changes," She could read on Aranea's face that she couldn't decide whether she should be happy that there wasn't any more swelling, or disappointed that there wasn't any less.