Balls Up (Blowing It, #2) by Kate Aaron

Author:Kate Aaron [Aaron, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Croft House

Chapter 19

I discovered very quickly that I hated bleomycin.

The first day of chemo was nothing like I’d imagined. Rather than puking all over the ward and having to be carried to Magnus’s car, weak and sickly and possibly raving, I’d strolled out feeling as well as I’d arrived. The nurse warned me I was very early into my treatment and could develop any number of complaints over the coming weeks, but I couldn’t help hoping I’d be one of the lucky ones who got through chemo without a slew of miserable side effects. Then on day two I was introduced to bleo, and I understood just how rapidly my condition could change.

Within half an hour of the drug being administered, I was sweaty and feverish. My limbs ached, and I had to turn off the computer, unable to stand looking at the backlit screen. I pressed the panic button but the nurse who checked on me said my symptoms were completely normal. By the time Magnus arrived to take me home, I could have sworn I was dying.

“It’s a common side effect,” he said gently, as he manoeuvred the car through traffic to my flat. “Bleomycin produces flu-like symptoms in almost everybody.”

“I’m not everybody,” I grumbled, closing my eyes as the movement made my temples pound.

He took his hand off the gear stick and squeezed my knee. “Sleep it off when we get in,” he advised. “It shouldn’t last more than a few hours.”

I groaned weakly, my bones jarring as the car went over a pothole. I’d expected this, and yet now it had happened, it was worse than I’d thought it could be. I wasn’t a good patient at the best of times. Feeling ill made me grumpy and irritable, betrayed by my own body when it proved too weak to fight off something as stupid as the common cold. It was macabre how easy cancer was in comparison. If it hadn’t been for the lump, I’d have felt nothing, known nothing. I wouldn’t have suspected anything was wrong. But two days of chemo and I was miserable, aching all over and hating every last second of how pathetic it made me feel.

When we got home, Magnus ordered me to bed and I obeyed without a word, clambering under the covers and burying my face in the pillows to blot out the light. He drew the curtains over the window, sinking the room into blessed darkness. The bed dipped as he sat beside me, a moment before he pressed his palm to my forehead.

“You’ve got a temperature,” he confirmed.

“Head hurts,” I moaned weakly.

“I’ll bring you some paracetamol.”

He moved his hand to stroke my hair, but even the lightest touch hurt, and I grumbled. Wordlessly, he rose from the bed, returning a moment later.

“Take these,” he urged, sitting again and encouraging me to lift my head.

Obediently, I took the pills and swallowed them with a mouthful of water from a glass he steadied for me. Then I slumped back into the pillows, and he tucked the covers around my neck as I shivered and sweated.

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