A Window of Memories
Brian stared at the open door to his room. He was hoping that someone would
come to visit him to take the monotony of the day away from him. His
memory came and went and he knew it. There were good days and bad days,
all chalked up to that damn chemo he had, he theorized.
Sliding off the bed and hopping onto his feet, Brian grabbed the photo
album that someone - he couldn’t think of who at this particular moment -
had given him. The pages had become well worn from him going over it at
least several thousand times. In the beginning of the book were pictures of
himself when he was around three years old and advanced from that point up
until a few months ago before he was placed into this adult care facility.
Brian stopped at one particular picture. The memories were so intense. He
remembered when that photo had been taken - it was on Nick’s 21st
birthday and they were getting ready for the trip to Tampa for the
superbowl stint. His fingers followed the outline of Nick and himself.
Brian remembered that he was becoming very ill from the chemo and had
been hiding it pretty good from the guys. At every stop he would use an
excuse for leaving and taking Steve, his bodyguard along with him. No one
seemed to know any different for awhile until that one day in May when Nick
walked in on him. Brian shuddered when that memory came up and quickly
shut the photo album and shoved it back into it’s place on the shelf.
“Hi Brian, you need to take your afternoon meds,” Alicia, the afternoon nurse
smiled as she walked into the room.
Brian smiled as his nurse. He took the cup she was holding and looked down
at the bottom. There were a colorful assortment of various pills that he had
to take three times a day.
“I wonder what would happen if I skip them,” Brian wondered outloud.
“Don’t even think about it!” Alicia replied as she handed a styrofoam cup of
water to him.
Sighing, Brian dumped the cup of meds into his mouth followed by a huge
drink of water to wash them down.
Smiling, he handed the cup back to the nurse. “Ya happy now?”
“Estatic,” came the quick reply.
“What exactly is it I have to take everyday?” Brian questioned.
“Let’s see, you have a vitamin supplement, a water pill, iron, three meds for
your cancer and a sedative.”
“Okay, so which one is it that is screwing me up so much?”
“Excuse me?”
“Which one is making me crazy?” Brian asked innocently.
“You mean how your memory comes and goes,” the nurse replied as she was
charting off the meds in Brian’s records.
“Yeah that,” Brian replied as he watched her shuffle the meds around on the
cart.
“You should ask your doc that when he makes the rounds,” Alicia replied.
Brian lightly grabbed her by the arm. “No, that could be too late. I can think
and understand clearly right now, this might not stick around and who knows
when it leaves if I’ll ever be coming back. I need to know why I’m going
crazy.” He bit the inside of his lip to try and stop the tears that were filling
in his eyes from falling.
“Honey, I wish I could answer that for you, but off the record, alot of the
patients that I’ve seen in my career that have had chemotherapy has had
some effect on the mind and altered their thoughts and memories. I’m sorry,
I wish there was something better I could tell you.”
“So this is never going to get better?”
Alicia shook her head. “But I think it’s a blessing that you won’t realize
what’s going on when the end comes.”
