I remember the first thing my nurse said when I went to the oncology clinic. I was with both of my really freaked out parents and she showed us to the patient room and I climbed onto the patient table. She looked at me and said, "Well you just hopped right up there just like a 16 year old!" Well, yeah. Because I was. As I soon learned, though, this was kind of novel for her because apparently (what a surprise) they didn't have any other 16 year old melanoma patients. Well I guess they kind of did, like if you multiplied 16 times 3...or 4...or 5. Yeah, I was definitely a baby compared to the other patients. As if I didn't feel out of place enough. Oof.
My doctor was great though, in terms of talent and expertise. Somehow, though still unknown to me, we managed to get in with the best doctors with the longest waiting lists with just a phone call. Maybe my parents "knew people" I was unaware of, or perhaps these doctors were intrigued by my case (much in the way that I am intrigued by those 200 pound babies on Discovery Health Channel). Regardless, I was blessed with an amazing team of physicians and nurses.
When my doctor walked in the room at that first appointment, my mother took an instant dislike to him. He was kind of awkward and didn't know where to look and I could kind of get that sense from him that he was terrified that if he even touched my shoulder that my father might body slam him (he's intimidating like that, my father is). He must have known that we all had some high expectations from him. Nothing extreme, just: fix me, make sure nothing else ever happens to me, don't put me in any kind of pain, and make my life super normal again. Don't they teach that in medical school? I guess not (not until I'm a medical school professor at least, and then it will be in the core curriculum, ha).
Anyway, I remember exactly how he looked at me: with interest, deliberation, and like I was a space alien sent to destroy him. I guess he wasn't used to the 16 year old patient, either. I was quite a commodity! He did his best to field the questions that were being thrust upon him at an average rate of 45 per minute. However, the fact that he was clearly uncomfortable got him some major strikes with my mom (we like to hug), and he's lucky she didn't demand to see his diplomas (not that she's demanded that from other physicians, I mean a request is different from a demand...). However, over the next year we broke down the awkward walls between us. He became more comfortable with a patient who didn't wear dentures and I went more with the flow. It didn't occur to me until years later (and by "occur to me" I mean my mom told me) that a lot of the doctors who worked with me were pretty freaked out because my case was so unusual and rare, and they had teenage daughters. So essentially, it could have been their own daughter sitting there. After she told me that I started to understand more about the avoidance of eye contact and occasional hurry to get out of the room. But there I digress again.
So we started my treatment. I was so ambitious when we first started! Going to boarding school an hour outside of Birmingham, this whole daily treatment thing was going to wreak havoc on my schedule. But I had it all figured out: On Mondays I'd get morning treatment then go to school for afternoon classes and Tuesday morning classes and come home for Tuesday afternoon treatment. Then Wednesday morning treatment and so on. Remarkably, I actually did stick to this regime... Well, for like 3 days. Then it became more of a, "Oh that's what they meant by horribly nauseated and throbbing head and dehydration..." And I missed a solid few weeks of school.
The interesting (and by "interesting" I mean "incredibly awful at the time") thing is that although they had seen countless people undergo my type of treatment before, they couldn't really tell us how it would affect someone my age. Some of the things they told us were accurate: I dropped a ton of weight, felt sick, exhausted, etc. Some things they told us were less accurate, like I ended up losing about half of my hair (that wasn't a typical side effect), but wow did it make my showers more interesting (and terrifying as I rinsed away clumps at a time). Still, it's not like I could stop or had a choice about it. The medicine did weird stuff to me, but I needed the medicine, so it won. And all of this before even turning 17.
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