Did they do it?
There were a lot of people at that appointment.
At the appointment in which Beca had been diagnosed with cancer, the dead giveaway to her diagnosis was that the consultant went to find “the nurse” to come into the appointment with her. From listening to Stacie’s stories of being on placement in hospitals, she knew this wasn’t a good news: clinical nurse specialists were present at every new diagnosis, mostly to re-explain everything the consultant had been saying while the patient was in too much in shock to hear a word.
When she had come back for the CT scan appointment in which she had found out her cancer had spread, there had been the doctor she was seeing, a Teenage Cancer Trust nurse and a third person – who had turned out to be an orthopaedic surgeon.
This time, the small room had most definitely been at capacity, containing as it did her normal oncologist, the orthopaedic surgeon, the Teenage Cancer Trust nurse (still there to repeat everything she hadn’t been able to listen to) and a physiotherapist, on top of herself and Chloe. The physio and the nurse had had to perch on the examination bed throughout the long discussion about what would happen next and what would happen after.
Beca felt a sort of buzzing disconnect throughout this appointment. She heard the words they were saying: they would amputate her leg above the knee, she would start doing physio before the amputation, they would get her up and out of bed as soon as possible after the operation, she would have to attend rehab at a specialised rehab centre… etc. But mostly, Beca couldn’t get past the fact that when all of this would be happening, she would only have one leg. She might be agreeing to the operation, she might understand that this was the only thing that could save her life (and maybe not even then, she reminded herself, late at night when Chloe was sleeping peacefully beside her, when her leg hurt and her heart hurt and she wished so damned much that this had just never happened) but her eyes still filled with tears and her arm still felt like it was made of stone as she forced herself to sign the consent form.
day 0
And it had all lead up to this moment, Beca mused as she sat in her hospital bed. It was early in the morning. She was in her regulation white-with-blue-diamonds, flimsy-as-hell hospital gown, sitting on top of the blanket on her neatly made bed, her left leg crossed over her right, fingers worrying themselves in her lap. She had arrived at the hospital in afternoon before, Chloe in tow, a large bag in tow behind that as they would both be staying in the hospital for 5 days or more. But Chloe had packed that. Because almost all of that time would be after she had had her operation, and considering a time in the future when she only had one leg was still not something Beca could do. She had had a couple of counselling sessions with counsellors from the Teenage Cancer Trust – Beca had never been so grateful that they had a separate unit at the hospital in Bristol where she was now, and where she would be able to recover – but she was still struggling to come to terms with the loss of a limb. So, Chloe had packed her a bag, had packed her clothes (leggings, because they would easily fold up and tuck into her waistband, and big comfy t-shirts that she wouldn’t have to take off when someone wanted to listen to her breathing, and socks, because her remaining foot might get cold when she was being less mobile, etc.), had packed her laptop and her smallest, most portable mixing equipment, had packed her headphones, and a bunch of cards and photos from their Bella housemates.
Beca had seen the physios, she’d seen the counsellor, she’d even seen her oncologist. She had let the nurse put a cannula in her arm, she had signed the frankly terrifying consent form for a blood transfusion, in case she needed one during the surgery, and she hadn’t had a drop of water or a morsel of food since last night, but who she was waiting for now was The Surgeon. The Surgeon, who was going to write on her right leg – THIS LEG – as well as on her left leg – NOT THIS LEG – and who would sign the final consent form with her. And then her nurse (Elizabeth, a sweet, mum-aged lady, with long thick hair and a kind smile) would wheel her from her current location in a side room, to the theatre. And then she would go to sleep, and when she woke up-
3 hours
“Did they do it?” voice croaky, eyelids fluttering, brow furrowed.
“They did it Becs,” soft, whispered, a catch in her throat.
“Oh. Ok,” and back to sleep.
9 hours
Beca’s eyes fluttered open, staying open this time. She blinked a few times, looked around the room, struggling to place herself in time. It was dark outside. Night time. She sat up, bedclothes rustling, and in doing so disturbed the red hair splayed across her blanket, which revealed itself to be Chloe’s when the redhead sat up suddenly, blinking herself in the bright fluorescent light of the hospital room.
“Beca!” she exclaimed, voice rough from sleep.
“Hey,” Beca almost whispered, her throat still hoarse and sore where they had intubated her during the surgery. Hearing the croak in her girlfriend’s voice Chloe turned around in her chair to the bed table behind her, poured a cup of water from the jug there, passed it to Beca with a straw. Beca drank thirstily.
“Thanks,” voice stronger now Beca shifted in the bed, leaning back into her pillows. She seemed to be fighting to keep her eyes open, blinking them repeatedly, closing her eyes for slightly longer each time.
“The doctor said you’d be feeling pretty sleepy for the first 24 hours,” Chloe reminded her gently.
“Mhmmm,” Beca mumbled, “msleepy. night night.”
Chloe smiled. Whatever time of the day or night it was that Beca was taking a nap (and she took plenty of naps) she always said night night.
“Night night, Becs,” she murmured in response, pulling the younger girl’s blankets up, fussing with them a little, smoothing them over her shoulders, “night night.”
22 hours
“Sorry to wake you Beca. We came round to see you yesterday but you were quite sleepy do I don’t suppose you remember that?”
“Not really, I’ve just mostly been asleep.”
“That’s to be expected. How are you feeling?”
“Ok I guess. Still kinda tired. I’m not really sure.”
“Have you had any breakfast?”
“A piece of toast.”
“Any pain anywhere at all?”
“No. I can’t feel anything in… on my right side”
“That’s because of the nerve block we put in. That’s going to start wearing off in the next hour or so. Do you have any sensations that aren’t pai-“
“-No.”
The doctor indicated the small remote attached to a wire which lead to a pump, sitting on the bed next to Beca’s. “Has someone talked to you about your patient controlled analgesia pump?”
“Yeah, Elizabeth did. My nurse.”
“Great. There are additional painkillers which we’ve prescribe for you which you can have if you’re still in pain, so make sure to tell someone if that’s the case, ok?”
“Ok.”
“The physios should be around to see you in an hour or so.”
“Right.”
“And you’re Beca’s friend, is that right?”
“She’s my girlfriend.”
“Excellent. Physio is always more fun when you’ve got someone with you. We’ll see you soon, Beca.”
As the collection of doctors that had come to see her filed out of the room, Beca slumped back on her pillow.
“How are you actually feeling Bec?” Chloe asked, somewhat tentatively. The other girl had only been woken up by the doctors on their ward round, so the two hadn’t had a chance to speak yet.
“Fine,” Beca replied, avoiding Chloe’s eyes, staring determinedly at something invisible but evidently interesting on the other side of the room.
“Mhmmm,” Chloe said sceptically, “and on a scale of nought to shitting yourself, how scared are you to look under your blankets right now?”
Silence for a beat.
“Maybe a nine?”
“And how does your right leg really feel?”
Another beat.
“Like it’s still there.”
“Oh Beca,” Chloe sighed, standing up, walking over to the girl in the bed. Cupping her cheek in her hands, Chloe slowly turned Beca to face her, finally meeting those dark blue eyes, which were shining even more brightly than usual with the tears that threatened to spill down the other girls’ cheeks.
“It’s going to be OK, Bec. Shall we look together, now? Before the physios get here? You know that hot one is gonna want your sexy ass out of bed so you can go racing up the corridor on a walker, spreading carnage in true Beca effin’ Mitchell style.”
Chloe’s insides glowed when this speech elicited an almost chuckle from her girlfriend.
“You can have kisses for motivation,” Chloe smirked, kissing first Beca’s forehead, then one cheek, then the other, and then-
“Nope! You don’t get the money shot until that blanket is right off your lap,” Chloe sang, dancing away from Beca slightly as the other girl opened her eyes and pouted.
“You’re mean.”
“Yep!” Chloe laughed.
But then, serious, “Beca, I know this is scary, and I know everything is different now, and but you’re still the same badass DJ you ever were, and if you can win the vomiting-Bellas first place in Nationals, you can do this. Because you’re Beca effin’ Mitchell. And because Fat Amy sent you some of her rack confidence. Don’t worry, I already transferred it with kisses.”
Beca gave a watery smile.
“Ok. Let’s do this shit.”
And she did.
26 hours
“I can’t do this Chloe, fuck, this HURTS, FUCK, I can’t do this, I can’t,” tears streaming down her face, hands clutched against her right thigh.
“Have you pressed the button?!” Frantic, frightened.
“I’ve pressed the fucking button but I pressed it five fucking minutes ago and it doesn’t give out that often, shit this hurts,” voice cracking, sobbing gently.
“Ok, I’ve pressed the call button, Elizabeth is coming, they’ll give you something,” smoothing hair away from a sweating brow, stroking a clammy cheek, one fist clenched by her side.
“Make her come quickly, Jesus Christ this is painful, for a leg that isn’t that it fucking HURTS.”
“Ok Beca, ok, I’m here, I’ve putting some painkillers in your IV right now, you should start to feel better very quickly. They might make you sleepy though, ok?”
“Sorry for scaring you Chlo…”
“It’s ok Bec. Just get some sleep,” a kiss on the forehead, “I love you.”
“mmmlove you too..”
72 hours
“Ok Beca. They’ve removed the drain from your leg. They’ve weaned you off the good painkillers, they’ve taken away your sexy nasal specs so you’re on the same air as the rest of us, and you’ve got an outpatients appointment to have your dressing removed and your residual limb wrapped. The only thing keeping you away from the PlayStation down the hall is that catheter. If you show me you can get into this wheelchair and onto the toilet by yourself, we can whip that baby out and you can go lose to your girlfriend at Mario Kart. Do you have this?”
“I’ve got this.”
“Ok. Show me what you’ve got”
84 hours
“Chloeeee, I have to pee again,”
“Mhmmm, and what do you want me to do about it?”
“Help meeeeeee”
“Rebecca Charlotta Mitchell your wheelchair is right there. You’re perfectly capable of getting in it and going to the loo by yourself, so hush your moaning and leave me to reading my book. Unless you need me to wipe your ass for you too?”
“…,” pout, “fine.”
96 hours
“Eugh, this is too hard!”
“It’s hard, Rebecca, but it isn’t too hard”
“How the hell would you know, how many legs do you have?!”
“…”
“Eugh, Chloe, how did all those YouTube people make this look so easy?!”
“I’m pretty sure they only put the happy bits on their channels, Becs. I’m pretty sure they found it hard too.”
“No they didn’t, they were all perfect and everything was great and none of them had any pain and they were all fucking Olympic HOPPERS.”
“I’m 98% certain there isn’t such thing as Olympic hopping Bec. We watched all of 2012 and not even the people with one leg were hopping.”
“Arghhhhh, Chloeeeeeeeeeee, I would rather watch Amy flash President Obama and thousands of other people while attempting to perform an aerial silk routine, than try and walk to the bathroom on these stupid crutches”
“That was… oddly specific, and we should discuss that later, but in the meantime, you made it! Now pee.”
100 hours
“How’re you feeling Beca?”
“Oh y’know, just like my leg, which isn’t there, has a spider crawling on it, which isn’t there, and like my ankle, which isn’t there, is at a super uncomfy angle, but I can’t change it because, get this, it isn’t there. So I’m feeling just peachy, thanks for asking Doc.”
120 hours
“Sweet wheels shortstack! Although, I’m pretty sure I could rock the wheelchair look a leeeeeetle better than you, I’ll let it go just this one time, seeing as I’m pretty sure even though couldn’t fall sitting down.”
It had been 5 days since her operation, and it was finally time for Beca to go home. The nurse had been round that morning and taken off the stiff bandage,eemoved the staples from the wound and re-wrapped her… residual limb, Beca thought to herself, residual limb residual limb residual limb. I don’t have a leg anymore, I have a residual limb.
She could get around using crutches, her right residual limb dangling in the air, but at this point she was still liable to forget, just for a split second, that she didn’t have a right leg. That split second was all it took to shift her weight onto her non-existent right leg, and send her tumbling to the ground. So far she had only had one ‘uncontrolled fall’ (as opposed to a ‘controlled fall’ or ‘a stumble’) but that had been enough to make her pretty nervous about using crutches. So, cumbersome though it might be, the safety of having her bum firmly in a chair made her prefer to get around in her wheelchair. The occupational therapists had given her a pretty snazzy, lightweight one (Beca tried not to think about the fact that the quality of the wheelchair they gave you was directly proportional to how long they expected you to spend in it, and this one was fancy), so it was pretty easy to get around on. For not the first time in many days, Beca thanked her lucky stars, and then her wonderful housemates, that she lived in a flat where everything was on one level, or she would’ve had to stay in the hospital longer.
“I can’t quite believe they’re letting me go home,” she mused to no one in particular. At that moment in time her private room was full to bursting with Bellas; not just Amy, but also Stacie, Aubrey, and Emily, as well as the ever-present Chloe, had all come to take her home again. The impracticality of such a huge sending off party (it required them to bring two cars, rather than one) had been pointed out by Beca, but secretly she was pleased that they had all come to help her on her way, and she was fooling no one when she said they should have all just stayed at home.
It was Emily, however, who heard Beca’s remark, and the young Bella turned from where she had been watching Fat Amy attempt to demonstrate her proficiency at using crutches, to general amusement, to face Beca.
“Ummm, how come? Don’t you want to go home?”
“No I do, of course I do!” Beca corrected quickly, “Believe me, I want to go home. It’s just kinda crazy y’know? They take a whole leg and then they just send you off into the world as if nothing’s changed, even though… Y’know. You only have one leg. It just seems weird, you know?”
Emily nodded enthusiastically, “Right! Kinda like when your parents drop you at your room in halls, and then they leave, and suddenly you’re this person that lives in one room and you only have food if you go out and buy it and you only have clean pants if you actually do your laundry and it’s a terrifying but your parents just leave you there and-“ Emily was cut off by the somewhat startling sight of Beca laughing hysterically.
“Yeah. Sure Emily. Just like that.”