AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Thank you for all of the reviews, suggestions, and feedback on my last chapter! It is very much appreciated! I think of all of the chapters, of all of the stories I have written thus far, these last reviews were some of my favorites, thank you! Some of you had some very interesting suggestions that I will definitely be keeping in mind for the coming chapters, I promise!
This chapter is very deep. It may be hard to read. Just know that I am not trying to turn any of you away from the story (I am more than grateful for all of your support!), I just want to make this as realistic as possible. So please bear with me, even when things look a little rocky.
I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Chapter 7
"Good! Take nice, even steps. You're getting the hang of it!"
As Arizona entered the prosthetist's office about a month later, she was elated to see Briley taking her first cautious steps with her new prosthetic between the parallel bars. Dr. Carlson was praising her with every step she took. Arizona stopped in her tracks to watch her progress.
"Okay, now turn around and walk back towards me," the prosthetist advised as Briley reached the end of the parallel bars.
As she slowly pivoted, she noticed Arizona watching her and a huge grin appeared on her face.
"Hi, Dr. Arizona! Look! I'm doing it!" Briley called. Her blue eyes shined with excitement.
"I see that! You're looking good!" Arizona nodded with an encouraging smile.
Just then, Dr. Moore appeared from the back room.
"Oh, hey, Arizona! Good to see you again. You're back to pick up your new prosthesis right?" David checked as he headed over to a table piled with prosthetic legs of various styles and sizes.
Arizona nodded as David picked up the sleek black and silver prosthetic. This new leg was one of many that Arizona had gone through over the years. Since her leg is constantly reshaping itself, she will be getting fitted and refitted for a new prosthetic periodically for the rest of her life. Just another day in the life of an amputee…
Arizona sat down on the exam table and began removing her current leg so that she could test her new one out. David helped her don the prosthesis and put on her left shoe as Arizona velcroed the strap around her waist in order to secure it. When she was ready to go, David moved the stool he was sitting on out of the way and held a hand out for Arizona to help her up.
Arizona tentatively shifted her height from one foot to the other, balancing herself between her good leg and her "bad" leg.
She walked to the opposite side of the room and back, planning her steps out carefully as she got used to the feeling of her new artificial appendage. This leg sure was looser than the last, so it was going to take some adjusting, but she already felt relief from her previous leg that was always giving her blisters.
David nodded as he analyzed his patient's steps.
"It looks good. More comfortable. How does it feel?" he asked her.
"Great. So much better. Thank you!" Arizona said as she made her way back to the exam table.
"Anytime. Let me know if it's too loose or if it starts to pinch or anything," David told her as she put her white lab coat back on.
"I will. See you later!" Arizona waved as she walked back towards the door.
She said goodbye as she passed Briley, who was still practicing on the parallel bars.
"Keep up the hard work, kiddo! It will all be worth it!" Arizona called over her shoulder as she stepped out into the hallway.
Before she walked towards the elevator, she watched through the window as Briley tried taking some steps without holding onto either bar beside her. Arizona watched as Briley giggled as she took tiny, but meaningful, steps.
For the first time in a long time, Arizona thought she had gotten a glimpse of old Briley. Pre-cancer Briley. The carefree and spunky and silly version of Briley that she had known for so long. She was getting stronger and stronger with each passing day. Arizona marveled at how happy Briley looked. And healthy, even!
Arizona felt herself let out a sigh of relief as she continued to watch from the window. In the months that had passed since Briley was diagnosed with the often-deadly Ewing sarcoma, Arizona had been in constant paranoia that things were gonna head south. But today, everything changed. Now, Arizona felt like she could see the light at the end of Briley's tunnel. Arizona's heart soared and she couldn't help but smile as she turned and headed back up to the maternity floor.
…
"Hey, are you on call tonight?" Arizona asked Callie as she crossed paths with her in the ER. It was nearly 10 PM and usually if they had a normal shift, they would have gone home by now.
Callie nodded.
"I'm covering the pit with Parker and Kepner tonight. Not by choice," Callie rolled her eyes, thinking about how she could be home asleep in her bed right now.
"Well, don't be so pessimistic because I'm on call too!" Arizona smiled and gave her wife a peck on the cheek before returning the tablet she had been using to the charging station. "However, I am going to the on call room to catch some Z's before I am paged. Care to join me?"
Callie's frown changed to a flirty smirk at Arizona's offer. Arizona held her hand out to take Callie's to lead her to the trauma on call room where they would be spending the night- until one of them is rudely awoken by a blaring pager that is.
They quickly entered the room and shut (and locked!) the door behind them. They both stripped down into just tank tops and spandex shorts, and Arizona swiftly discarded her prosthetic. The two women giggled as they clambered into the bottom bunk, snuggling into one another under the covers.
"It's been… a while since we've crashed in an on call room together," Callie said as she breathed in the intoxicating scent of Arizona's shampoo.
"Mmmhmm. I've missed it," Arizona replied, resting her head against Callie's chest. "It reminds me of when we were dating."
"Simpler times," Callie sighed. She hugged Arizona in closer beneath the sheets.
Before they knew it, they had both drifted off to sleep, cherishing the warmth of each other's body and listening to the rhythmic beating of each other's hearts.
…
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
The obnoxious sound of a pager going off startled them awake. Momentarily forgetting where she was, Callie jolted up in bed, whacking her head on the top bunk.
"Ow! Damn it!" She cursed, immediately bringing her hand up to rub her sore forehead as the pagers continued to beep.
"Is it yours or mine?" Arizona sleepily asked, not even registering her wife's minor injury.
"It's…" Callie started as she got out of bed to turn on the light so she could see whose noisy pager had woken them up from their peaceful slumber. She made a growly noise. "Both of us."
Arizona, who was still lying in bed, whined as she rolled over and wrapped her pillow around her face in an attempt to silence the alarms. Callie walked over and pried Arizona's fingers off of the pillow and shoved her pager in her hand.
"Is it the pit?" Arizona asked, her voice muffled from the pillow still on top of her head.
"It's…" Callie began as she checked the name that appeared on the screen. She made a confused face as she realized who was paging them. "Karev?"
"Karev?!" Arizona asked, throwing the pillow down, suddenly alarmed. "Why would he be paging both of us?"
Callie slipped on her scrub pants before pulling her top over head.
"It must have something to do with Briley."
Arizona's heart raced as she quickly donned her prosthetic before getting changed herself. Glancing at her watch, she noticed that they had only been sleeping for less than an hour and a half, but somehow, that was just the power nap she needed. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins.
A minute of two later, both women were ready to go and they jogged up to the peds floor to find Alex. Both women hoped, prayed, and wished that this page wasn't about Briley, but deep down they both knew it was.
The elevator dinged and they arrived on the pediatric floor. The floor was mostly dark and quiet, how it usually was at night because of the sleeping young patients. There was no sign of Alex anywhere, and both women subconsciously held their breath as they approached Briley's hospital room.
The light was on and, sure enough, there was Alex, consoling a sobbing Briley. Chandler and Nicole stood concerned at Briley's bedside. Callie and Arizona exchanged a worried look before entering the room.
"Hey, hey, hey, what's going on in here?" Arizona asked in her soft soothing voice, perfect for comforting kids.
"She's spiked a fever. The side effects of the chemo are coming in full force, and she's feeling it's wrath," Alex filled them in on the current situation as he rubbed Briley's back. Briley was sitting up in the hospital bed, leaning over a plastic vomit bowl, crying hysterically, while scratching at her nearly translucent skin.
"Her mouth is so blistered that it hurts to eat, so she hasn't been," Nicole informed the women.
Arizona nodded.
"Hey, Bri, will you open your mouth for me?" Arizona asked.
Briley held up her tear streaked face and reluctantly opened her mouth. Arizona used her penlight to get a better view. Just as Arizona had expected, her lips, cheeks, gums, and tongue were covered with gushing open wounds.
"She's experiencing oral mucositis- mouth sores- from the chemotherapy," Arizona told them.
"The chemo regimen she's on can cause mouth sores. That's because these cancer treatments are intended to kill rapidly growing cells, such as cancer cells. Some healthy cells in your body also divide and grow rapidly, including the cells that line the inside of your mouth. Unfortunately these healthy cells are also damaged by chemotherapy. And damage to the cells in your mouth makes it difficult for your mouth to heal itself and to fend off germs, leading to sores and infections," Callie patiently explained.
Chandler and Nicole's jaws dropped. They knew that the chemo could cause hair loss, but didn't know about any of it's other side effects.
"It's very, very painful, but we can't do much to treat it. They usually pass on their own after a bit of time," Arizona sighed, wishing there was some magic remedy that could heal Briley.
Glancing down into the vomit bowl in front of her, Arizona could clearly see that Nicole was right about Briley not having eaten today. All Briley had thrown up was bile and blood.
"She wasn't warm until a half hour ago, and then she started throwing up. She's just in so much pain, I didn't know what to do except have you all paged."
"You did the right thing," Callie said, placing a comforting hand on Nicole's arm.
"It burns!" Briley yelped as she continued to scratch her skin, writhing uncomfortably in the bed.
"I know, sweet girl. I know it does. I'm sorry," Arizona did her best to soothe Briley, knowing all too well from years of experience that the poisonous treatment coursing through her veins made it feel like her insides were burning.
Arizona took her stethoscope off from around her neck and placed it in her ears. Alex moved out of the way so that she could listen to Briley's breath sounds. Briley jumped and cried out with pain as the cold stethoscope made contact with her tingling skin.
Arizona directed her attention to Nicole and Chandler as she placed her stethoscope back around her neck.
"The mouth sores, the nausea, and the burning sensation are all normal side effects from the chemotherapy she is on. As painful as it is, these side effects can't be prevented or treated effectively," she explained.
"This is all due to the fact that there hasn't been an advancement in research or treatments for childhood cancer in over 30 years. This stuff is outdated, but there's no funding to look into safer and less toxic treatments. So this is what we've got. And it sucks," Alex elaborated.
"Let's order more morphine STAT," Arizona turned to Alex.
Alex shook his head.
"She's maxed out on pain and nausea meds. She's maxed out on everything! This is as much relief as she's going to get," Alex reported.
Arizona's face saddened as she bit her lower lip. Nothing hurt her heart more than knowing that there was nothing more she could do for her patient.
"Okay, well… Get her something to bring her fever down and give her some supplemental oxygen," Arizona said.
Alex nodded before directing his next statement to Chandler and Nicole.
"I'm going to have to insert a nasogastric tube into Briley's nose. It's a type of feeding tube that will continue to give her the nutrients she needs while her mouth is hurting. It'll be a bitch to put in, but it will help her tremendously in the long run."
Her parents nodded.
"Do whatever you need to do," Chandler told him, placing an arm around his wife.
Callie and Arizona watched as Alex got prepped. They couldn't help but focus their attention on Briley. She was in so much pain that she was oblivious to what was going on around her. The normally tall sixteen year old looked so small and frail in the hospital bed. She just looked… sick.
Arizona couldn't help but think back to earlier that morning when she had passed by her in the prosthetist's office. She was so bubbly and full of vibrance! This was a completely different girl than she had ran into thirteen hours ago. The girl in front of her was drastically different… and rapidly declining right before her eyes.
"Hey…" Alex called out to Callie and Arizona, snapping them out of their thoughts. "I've got this from here. You can go."
Alex knew that inserting an NG tube was an uncomfortable procedure- for the patient, the doctor, and onlookers alike. Arizona knew that he was giving them an out so that they wouldn't have to watch Briley's indescribable pain as a flexible plastic tube was shoved up her nose and down her esophagus directly into her stomach.
Callie and Arizona glanced at each other. Callie knew that an internal battle was unfolding in Arizona's mind right now. Part of her wanted to stay to support the Lockes through this unimaginable time, but another part of her wanted to give the family as much privacy as she could. Callie gave Arizona a sympathetic nod as she placed a comforting hand on the small of her back. Both women silently left the room, making sure to close the door behind them.
As they walked down the dark hallway, they were both lost in their own thoughts. They both stared blankly ahead as they heard Briley's screams stop for a moment before starting up again, louder than ever.
The tube is being inserted, they both thought to themselves, shuddering as they imagined the procedure being done to them.
Woah.
I know that was scary and concerning and hard to wrap your mind around. I know. I could have just overlooked that part and had Briley just come off as a one-dimensional smiley little bald kid who just happens to have this thing called cancer, but I didn't want to do that. Because what good would ignoring the situation have done for any of us?
Part of the reason I wanted to tell this story was because I wanted to show the reality of childhood cancer. And the reality is that children with cancer are dying everyday in the US because research is vastly underfunded. Only 3.8% of the budget that is donated towards cancer research from the US government is donated to all childhood cancers combined. 3.8%. Because of this, 46 children are diagnosed with a form of childhood cancer every day in the US, and 7 will die. Due to lack of research, they are suffering through decades old treatments and their severe side effects just for the possibility of surviving. This can not continue.
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, even if some of it was hard to read. It took a lot out of me to write this, so I would very much enjoy it if you all left reviews, comments, and suggestions! You guys are the best!
xoxo Arizona Robbins MD