Above the Noise (25 page)

I COULD HEAR
Gracie’s voice. I struggled to open my eyes. Through one eye, I could see two figures standing in a doorway, but it was so fucking bright there was no way I could convince my eyes to open any further.

“We’re just going to run some tests. It sounds like a classic panic attack, but we want to be sure. Could you try to fill these forms out as best you can while she sleeps? We’re going to run some tests on the blood we took and see if we can’t get a better idea of what her body’s telling us.”

“Thank you.” Gracie’s voice shook.

“Gracie?” I was so exhausted I could barely speak, but I needed her to know I was awake.

“Becki. You shit! You scared the hell out of me! Dammit, Becki!”

“I changed my mind. You’ll make an okay mom, but you’d suck as a nurse, yelling at your patients like that.” I forced a smile to let her know I was joking.

“Becki, you passed out, right there on the sidewalk. Maverick carried you here.”

“Where?” I rubbed my face with my clammy hands.

“The urgent care office. They took like a hundred vials of blood. I didn’t think you’d wake up. I feel like we’ve been here for hours, and it’s been probably thirty minutes.”

“Calon?”

“Jake called. He just got to Mitchell’s, so I asked him to wait until the guys were done playing to tell him what happened.”

“Thanks, Gracie. I’d hate if they cut out early. The nightmare of The Moondance gig would start all over again.” Everything was coming back into focus, and my eyes had adjusted to the lights, so I could see the glistening tear tracks down Gracie’s cheeks. “Are you crying?”

“I know he will be pissed that no one told him right away, but what was he going to do but pace in here while you slept? He’d make me even more nervous than I already was? And, yes, I’m crying. Are you surprised? Becki, you know I’m not good at this kind of stuff!”

All I could do was giggle. No sound came out as I squeezed my eyes shut and my body shook with laughter.

“If you’re convulsing, I’m not even helping you because you’re laughing at me while you’re doing it.” Gracie folder her arms over her chest and looked away from me.

“Well, while you’re ignoring me, could you please figure out how to prop me up?” I thought about what I’d just asked her to do after I pissed her off. “But BE NICE! Don’t hit the eject button or anything. You hear me? My heart can’t take that much excitement, yet.”

“I think I can control myself.” She leaned down and hugged me, boobs pressed against my neck and her arms awkwardly placed around my shoulders. She stood, stuck her tongue out at me, and hit a button that slowly lifted me to a sitting position.

We spent the next thirty minutes filling out the medical history forms. Gracie wrote as I answered questions from my exam table—bed thing. This, of course, meant I had to relive my Leukemia diagnosis and chemotherapy, which was the least favorite of all my childhood memories. I had no answers for my dad’s side of the medical history, so that cut down on the time it took us to finish the stack of questions on the clipboard Gracie held on her lap. She was staying very calm, but I knew she had to be freaked out. I was proud of her for holding it together as well as she did.

There was a quiet knock at the door just before the knob turned and a tall gray-haired man walked in. He had the typical balding man comb-over thing going and big grandpa glasses but the kindest eyes I’d ever seen on a doctor. I could tell just by looking at his face that he was tuned into the fact that I was a real person that came to the office with a whole host of things going on, not just some drunk co-ed. His smile calmed me. He peeked over Gracie’s shoulder toward the clipboard and then walked over and put his hand out for me to shake.

“Becki, what beautiful eyes you have. I’m glad to finally see them. I’m Dr. Webber. Gracie and I have met, and I see you’ve been helping her fill out your medical history for me.” He patted the outside of my hand with his other hand.

“Thank you, Dr. Webber, and, yes, she’s been a big help with all those questions.” I smiled.

He took the clipboard from Gracie and adjusted his glasses. He skimmed the pages one by one.

“You’re twenty-one and already a cancer survivor. You must be a fighter. Good for you, Becki.”

I folded my hands in my lap and a wave of panic came over me. I never told anyone but almost every day of my life, at some point during the day or while I lay in bed at night, I worried one day my cancer would come back. It’s a sneaky little bitch, and you don’t have to watch too many healthcare commercials on TV to understand that one day you’re fine then the next you’re talking chemo and radiation.
Fuck.

“Well, Becki, we’re still running some of your blood tests, so we can determine what’s gotten into you. Was tonight the first time you’ve had a dizzy spell?” He flipped the stapled packet over and poised his pen to jot down what I said.

“No, I had some bad sushi a while back, and it just seemed like I haven’t snapped back fully after being real sick for a couple days. I just started a new job. It’s very busy and sometimes stressful. I don’t get a lot of sleep, so I guess I’ve just assumed I was run down.” I cleared my throat to hide the fact that I needed to take a deep breath to calm my shaken nerves. I watched him scrawl some notes over the back of the packet.

“Well, that could be exactly what this is. Now, tell me what your diet is like.”

“I’m a vegetarian, so it’s pretty much bread, cheese, beans, and rice. Well, besides all the vegetables and fruit I eat.”

“Do you drink?” He smiled when he said it. Dumb question.

I chuckled. “Uh, yeah, I do. Not every day, but my job has me in bars a couple nights a week, so I have a couple beers when I’m there.”

“What kind of job do you have that you can drink while you work? I may need to look at my options.” He smiled and waved his hand from side to side to let me know he was kidding.

“I’m the manager for Alternate Tragedy, and we have a couple gigs a week. While they play, I man the merchandise table, deal with any issues, and throw back some beers or a couple shots to take the edge off the stress. Then all the scheduling and publicity stuff is done during the day while they rehearse.”

“Sounds like you’re definitely exhausted. Well, I can tell you that I’m thinking this could be a couple things. There’s a very good possibility your episode tonight was your body deciding it was time to shut down for just a little bit, so it could rest. But, quite often when we see vegetarian students, we find they’re anemic but had no idea. It’s quite easy to just cut out meat. But, the problem with that is, your body needs protein for strength, to keep you healthy and to rebuild muscle. Anemia will leave you with little to no energy, you’ll become pale, you’ll get dizzy often, and even the rapid heartbeat you experienced tonight is a symptom.”

“I’ll kiss you if that’s all this is.” I stopped wringing my hands.

“Well, that’s the best offer I’ve had all day… not very professional for me to take you up on that, but I’m flattered.” He smiled, and, for a second, I could see Dr. Webber as a young man. I could look past the gray hair and see him thirty years younger. I had a feeling he had been quite the stud.

“I’ll take your history, review it a little closer, and be back when your tests are done. Do you have any questions for me?”

“Nope. I just want to go home.”

“Let me go check on your tests, and I’ll be right back.” He smiled and walked out into the hall. When the door clicked shut, I took a deep breath and a choked out a sob I didn’t even know I’d been holding back.

“Becki. What’s wrong?”

“Gracie, for a couple minutes I thought for sure he was going to tell me that it was classic Leukemia relapse. I’m just so relieved. It doesn’t sound like he expects that at all. He didn’t even mention it.”

“Oh my, Becki. I hadn’t even let that enter my mind.” She lunged at me, hugged me tight, and sniffled. “Move over.” She hopped up onto the weird table-bed thing, and we both just lay there looking at the ceiling. Silent.

“Do you ever wonder when God’s just gonna throw you a curveball?” As soon as I said it, I realized what a pussy I sounded like. I looked over at her, and our noses almost touched.

“I think we survive curveballs every day. Some are just worse than others. But, I don’t think God is up there tossing them around at people, if that’s what you mean.” She smiled a little.

“If he’s not responsible for passing them out, why wouldn’t he stop bad things from happening to good people? Do you ever wonder that?” I rarely got into spiritual or religious conversations with anyone, but Gracie grew up in a two-parent, church-going home, so I knew she wouldn’t judge me or laugh at my questions.

“Well, my mom always says that God’s plan is just so big that we have to get all the way up to Heaven to look down on it. Then, and only then, will we be able to see the whole thing laid out. I picture it looking something like a puzzle. One of those ‘if this didn’t happen then
this
wouldn’t have happened’ kind of riddles. Ya know?” She shrugged and picked at her nails. That was always a sign something triggered a thought of Noah. I didn’t want to pry, so I just continued the conversation and figured she’d share if she needed to.

“Your mom’s pretty cool. She just seems like one of those moms that always has an answer that’ll take the weight of the world off your back.”

“Yeah, she has a knack for that.” Gracie got really quiet and introspective. She tipped her head to the side and smiled. “When I told her I was falling in love with Jake, do you know what she said to me?”

“I have no idea.” I loved Gracie’s mom. I wish I had utilized her advice more over the past couple years.

“She said, ‘Now, do you see how a huge negative can lead you to something beautiful that you didn’t even know existed?’ She was talking about Noah. If I hadn’t met Noah that summer at Murphy’s, there’s a good chance I’d never have met Jake. It sounds cheesy, but I didn’t even know this kind of love existed or that I was worthy of it. And I wouldn’t be where I am today without walking through shit to get here.”

“Your mom said
shit
?” Gracie’s mom never swore.

“Becki! No. That was my translation. Her point was, sometimes the negative things we go through open us up to things more beautiful than we could ever imagine.”

“I love your mom.”

“Me, too.”

“She’s the reason you’ll be an amazing mom one day, Gracie.”

A quiet knock at the door startled us both and pulled us from our sappy BFF moment. Dr. Webber walked in holding his clipboard to his chest. He smiled and took his glasses off.

“Gracie, would you mind waiting for Becki in the waiting room?”

My stomach fell to the floor. I grabbed Gracie’s hand. “No, she’s staying. If you’re going to tell me I’m dying, I need her here.”

“Well, Becki, I’m certainly not going to give you a death sentence. The medical privacy act requires me to talk privately to all my patients. But, it’s up to you if you’d like her to stay, and if she’d like to stay.”

“Yes.” We spoke in stereo, holding each other’s hands.

“Well, okay then…” He smiled, grabbed a stool, and sat down, which made an uncomfortable hiss sound from the seat cushion compacting. “It appears as though we were right about a couple things. You are definitely anemic, and your blood work shows that the anemia and your rapid heartbeat could be connected.”

“Okay. Exhaustion?” I bit my lip.
Let that be all this is.

“Well, actually, yes. Your exhaustion plays a part, as well.”

He continued talking, but I spoke over top of him. “I know what you’re going to say. You want me to start eating meat. Well, that’s not—”

“Becki, you’re pregnant.”

My heart stopped, I felt it. It slammed inside my chest so hard that I had no pulse for a fraction of a second.

Pregnant.

Gracie stared at Dr. Webber and didn’t move.

A baby.

I shook my head.

Inside me.

“But the chemo. They said I’d be sterile.”

“Well, apparently, the baby’s a fighter like its mom.”

Mom.

Dr. Webber kept talking. I heard him say all the other tests came back normal. He said something about iron supplements. He handed me a packet of papers, and I heard him say something about the Obstetrics suite at the hospital.

I blinked my eyes and looked back and forth between Gracie and Dr. Webber.

“Becki, it’s going to be okay. You’re a healthy young woman. You’re in great shape.” Dr. Webber put his glasses back on.

“No, it’s not okay. This was never going to be part of my life. I never expected…” I couldn’t even say the word
pregnant
at that moment.

“Becki, I’ve given this news to many college students. It may not be what you were expecting me to say. It’s a shock. I get that. I’ve seen the same look on probably a hundred faces over the last couple years. You have options, Becki. It’s your body, and you and the father will need to weigh all your options. You have time. You’re at the beginning of your pregnancy. I would estimate you are about nine to twelve weeks along. That would make you due…” He flipped through a mini calendar on the counter. “… sometime in May or June.”