It surprisingly took a bit longer than I'd anticipated. Perhaps it was because I thought it would take an hour at most, perhaps not.
So they left around 7:15 and when they'd returned, I had almost finished one of my favourite movies, 'Gattaca'. Dawn looked very tired, making me wonder if the tests were a bit too much for her to handle. However, if that was the case, Catherine would have looked tired as well, since she'll have to lift her up.
"Okay, Dawn. We'll give you a short resting period and then continue on with the new combination. It'll be better that way, and the symptoms won't get worse. Tell anyone if you feel sick, especially Lucas: he'll be the closest to you and remain that way till your last breath."
Hearing my uncle do sweet talk… It's not a common thing, definitely. At least, when I was present he barely did. So I couldn't help but think Dawn was in quite a bad state.
Catherine helped Dawn sit down on her bed, with a lot of effort on her side. Dawn probably would have tried to — at least, in most cases — but she didn't bother to do anything, her eyes completely off-focus. Dr Jones looked at her worriedly, so things were definitely much worse than I would have thought. Dr Jones motioned with her fingers to me, so after I helped Dawn lie down on the bed, I followed her.
She took me to a cafe inside the hospital and got us both a venti-sized iced americano. I thanked her and gulped down a few mouthfuls, missing the taste much more than I'd thought. "It's free for the workers and you can request them to reduce the sugar for patients."
"Dawn will like it, then. She can have some Arnold Palmer and I can get an americano."
"Your thoughts seem to be centred on Dawn only." Dr Jones casually remarked.
"Yeah. I mean, I'll be taking care of her when she moves to the hospice, and we are close friends, too."
"You both love each other, I already know that, so don't try to fool me. Dawn told me."
"Well, it's true as well, though."
She chuckled and said, "Yes, of course."
"So why are we here?"
"Giving Dawn some time alone. She asked me if I could do that… and explain her situation while I'm at it." She said, taking a sip of her drink. "I'm not going to run around the bush: I don't believe there's a point to that, and you need to know. Besides, you've guessed it correctly and your uncle already spilt the tea."
"Ototoxicity?"
"Yes, and cisplatin is the cause as well. For Dawn's case, I have to thank you. If it weren't for you, we may have found it much later and there might have been enough time to turn things back to nearly where it was."
Dr Jones took a breath and continued. "You already know chemo side effects cannot be completely reversed, yes?" — I nodded. — "But if it's found in the early stage, we may have a chance to reverse it so it gets as close as it can get to the state it was before. So Dawn may have tinnitus and balance-losing in the future, but it wouldn't be like now; more like it was before with the effects being a tiny bit stronger."
"So pretty much the same?"
"Yes, but Dawn may have some difficulty dealing with the pain. You know ototoxicity doesn't have any medicines to treat the case. The only way is either to stop or reduce the drug that caused it. Since we can just use a different combination with irinotecan, we'll be changing and Dawn will take it after two weeks."
"But isn't the resting period for a month?"
"Yes, but we decided it would be alright if it was just for half of the time and Dawn agreed."
"If Dawn didn't mind, then I suppose it would be fine," I answered and Dr Jones smiled knowingly; I'd shown my love for Dawn again.
"Was that why Dawn looked a bit… Gloomy?" Changing the topic, I asked, trying to find the correct words.
"Shocked, then exhausted is more like it. I knew she didn't seriously consider that cisplatin would cause that much of an issue: she tried to act like it wasn't a big deal before you because she was worried you would worry."
"But how could I not? I have to tell my uncle or Catherine or anyone involved in the process of her chemo if something went wrong with her."
"Before they arrive, Dawn will be able to read your worry straight off of your face. That would make her worry, and more when it was found out to be nothing of serious concern. You'll have lost sleep worrying about that — at least, that's what Dawn thinks — and she doesn't want that happening because she cares about you as well."
Dr Jones took a sip of coffee, while Dawn's point of view sank into my thoughts. "Dawn cares about you much more than you think. And when I say she cares about you, I don't mean the 'friend' sense; she likes you as much as you do.
"Dawn never told me about this in exact words, but I know because she has hinted at it a few times. When I told her that she has to tell you if something feels off, she looked quite reluctant and told me the things I just told you. So I told her that you would worry if she didn't and you'll feel guilty about not finding out about it sooner, but she told me she was worried about you worrying about her health and suffering from it.
"I didn't have a chance yet to ask her what she meant by that, but I have a possible guess. She knows that you like her and she likes you and when she dies, you'll be left alone, so she doesn't want you to feel that kind of feeling beforehand. I know this makes no sense to you and the other s/os of other patients thought the same, but that's a thought some of my patients had."
"But if she didn't tell me and her symptoms got worse because of that, wouldn't I be regretting about that as well when that time comes?"
"Tell her that. It may seem cruel and she may shed a few tears, but I think you need to tell her. I recommended the same for the other people as well, but no one took that advice. But remember, you'll have to risk telling her that we've talked about this, which she definitely doesn't know."
This is quite the bad situation: I did think of the possibility that Dawn doesn't know about much of the conversation between me and Dr Jones, but now I wasn't sure if I could just tell about it. She may feel hurt, although how I would never know.
"It's completely up to you, but I won't tell her about our conversation. She never told me I couldn't say that, but I think it's safe for me not to tell her. That is, until she asks me herself. So you'll be the one speaking and Dawn will never know until you tell her what you think."
"I think I'd need to think about it. But did Dawn tell you about our relationship herself?"
To me, this felt very weird. I never thought of Dawn as a person who would tell others — especially people she doesn't know well — about herself.
"She did. I don't think she was really planning to, and I wasn't going to ask her about it, until I saw you attempt to carry her, as if you didn't notice Catherine's presence beside me and Dr Johnson. I then knew the relationship between you wasn't something being labelled as something like 'friendship', so I asked her how you two know each other. She told me you knew each other from school and that you two were close friends.
"Then Catherine asked her if the two of you like each other. She saw you carrying her out of the bathroom and you may have not noticed, but Dawn was blushing. Dawn then told her she blushed because she saw the three of us and that you two both like each other."
"Well, Catherine and Dawn had gotten close pretty quickly over the last few days. I suppose that's why she answered, but she may have admitted only ecause my uncle would correct her if she said it otherwise."
"Then it's because Catherine and Dawn were much closer than you thought: your uncle wasn't in the room when we talked about that. Before you go questioning why he wasn't present, it was because he had to answer a call from whom I assumed as his s/o."
"Yeah, I heard his wife is in a hospital elsewhere from a car crash."
"Well, I thought it was something like that."
After we finished our coffees, I took out an Arnold Palmer, making sure to remove the sugar for her, and another americano for me to last the rest of the day. I thought I may have needed to pay for both, but they gave me Dawn's for free and made me pay for mine.
We parted our ways as she needed to go to check on her patients in the recovery area and I made my way back to Dawn's room.