Odd One Out

Thursday 29 March

Lara's room mate is an intelligent woman in advance state of treatment for leukemia. (She has lost all her hair.) The two do quite a bit of talking when alone - and even when I was visiting at midday. Trouble is that sooner than later hospital talk revolves around diseases, treatment and above all: mishaps. Good news is no news. Exceptions to the rule, the odd one out, and the "shouldn't have happened but did" weigh in heavily.

To Lara this is disconcerting and one doesn't need to wonder why. Leukemia is a lethal disease when left untreated and its treatment is fraught with risk. When you are a patient in the middle of a fully blown chemotherapy, sensitivity to outside stimuli is probably enhanced. You hear a disaster story and seconds later you start feeling the corresponding symptoms yourself. Your brain tells you to not worry, for no two cases are alike. You tell yourself there are multiple variants in leukemia, and in its treatment, as there are in individual responses to protocols implemented. That is what the brain tells you, once you have calmed down and thought about this. Meanwhile your heart - or wherever your emotions are centered - fills you with trepidation; from there you may easily spiral down, and before you know it you're convinced you're not going to make it. Even if you don't say so out loud, your face is easily like an open book to the occasional visitor who can afford more distance to reality. Such as I.

Lara whinced as her room mate had retired to the bathroom momentarily. Then avoid those conversations, I told her. There is plenty of other material to talk about, much more inocuous. Or don't talk but read instead. I know, she said.

Her blood pressure was too low (lower than her normal low) so they had put her feet up and her head back. When I came in, she was sitting up while making a respectable dent in her hot meal of the day: roasted chicken, potatoes and assorted peas. She ate with appetite. No further symptoms of any import at this point in the chemo. A light nausea was effectively suppressed with medication. Too early for a rash. She is only in the first 24 hours of treatment, after all.

As a point of reference: one major annoyance is that the two TVs in the room have no sound. The malfunction was duly reported twice, but hospital technicians probably had more urgent business to attend to. With a government crisis going on in Holland, Lara wouldn't mind some news reports. But that is about the level of comfort versus discomfort. At least for now.

Her friend Andreina visited, with her son Alexander. They left just before I arrived. I stayed until two, due back at 6:30PM. Will bring the Herald Trib for her reading pleasure, and we will possibly do the "Jumble" together (a word riddle, and a fixed item on the cartoon page), as we do every morning over breakfast at home.