Page 4 of Client from Hell

“Oh, I really doubt that at all. You’ll find him to be quite an understanding fellow, and he has his ways of working around problems. I will discuss the matter with him, and I’ll talk to the dean about your situation. We have financial programs for people in your situation as well, although we’ll need medical information proving the diagnosis. We also have agreements in place with the CDC, which may prove to be useful to you. I’ll text you when I have more information. For now, go home and get rest. I will take care of notifying your professors of your situation, so you don’t have to deal with the protests and general arguments. Not everyone in this institution holds my general stance on how to interact with students with terminal conditions, so I will make certain you do not witness any of that ugliness while we make arrangements for your internship.”

“You seem confident the client isn’t going to care about my medical debts, credit, or shortened lifespan.”

“I know your client. He views obstacles like that as challenges to overcome.”

“Life doesn’t work like that, Dr. Lakset.”

“For him, it does.”

Two

Glasses made life better.

Chemotherapy sucked.

Thanks to the nature of my cancer, its enjoyment of spreading through my body, and my doctors’ general concerns of how the treatments would completely destroy my immune system, they opted to lock me in a special cancer treatment ward within the hospital. In some movies, I’d seen the plastic-shrouded rooms, although they’d been meant for containing various contagions.

I spent a shameful number of hours pretending I was the index case of some badass virus to amuse myself while waiting to discover if I would kick the bucket or not.

With my blessing, especially as I expected to die sooner than later anyway, I gave my doctors permission to use whatever combination of treatment methods they wanted. It might help somebody else down the road, even if I kicked the bucket a little sooner than anticipated.

Method one involved flooding my bloodstream with a cocktail of drugs meant to kill cancer cells. In reality, it killed a lot of cells, including the cancer, part of why I’d been put in isolation.

The drugs, a blend of five from different chemical family groups, couldn’t distinguish between good cells and bad ones, resulting in a destroyed immune system.

Method two involved a ridiculous number of incisions across my body and implanting tiny wafers made of more chemotherapy drugs, also meant to help slaughter the cancer cells.

And any cells the drugs wanted, really.

Assuming I survived, I would be one big ball of pain and misery with a fuckton of healing ahead of me.

Method three involved pills, which I got to take by the handful three times a day.

In conjunction with their decision to assault my body through various chemotherapy methods, the hospital opted to knock my ass out for the first three days. I appreciated that. My first coherent day following treatment, I regretted my generosity thanks to the rather unpleasant dosage of pain to go along with the drugs.

Pain sucked. The cancer had notified me of its presence with a hefty dose of misery, and it refused to go out without a fight, insisting on subjecting me to bone-deep flares of agony, the kind I expected to be dished out in hell.

I could understand why people wanted to dodge hell through religion if hell involved even a fraction of the suffering I endured. The hospital’s pain management tactics helped some, although I questioned if the limited relief justified the ridiculous bill I would pay for the meds.

By day six, I’d lost most of my hair, and I didn’t appreciate my scalp’s desire to set records. Had I been a little more normal, I would’ve had my hair for at least another week. It didn’t take me long to accept little about my situation counted as normal.

On the seventh day following treatments, one of the nurses cleansed a phone—a much newer and better model than the one I owned—and my glasses of any potential contaminates, and brought them into my plastic-wrapped medical prison. Upon closer investigation, the new phone had my old number, and someone had loaded in my contacts, including a new one named Internship Client.

I thanked the woman, regretting I couldn’t address her by name. The staff changed often enough I struggled to remember their names. Thanks to the realities of chemotherapy, my vision barred me from casually reading name tags without my glasses.

Glasses made life better, and I thanked her again before shoving the pair onto my face where they belonged.

At least I could say the cancer had only worsened my preexisting problems on that score.

According to her tag, her name was Marie, and she wasn’t actually a nurse, but a radiologist, one of the people who helped translate the readings from the fancy machines and turned them into something almost sensible. Not only had she brought the phone with her, she had a charger, too.

“Am I in one of the fancy rooms that can use cellular without breaking the equipment?” I asked.

“You won’t damage any equipment in here with your phone,” she confirmed. “We’re currently cleaning some other items for you so they can come into the room, but it will be another hour or two. It’s tricky making sure electronics can come in, and the practitioner can only purify one item at a time. You also have some letters and mail we can bring in once they’re cleaned, but I brought your phone so you had something to do while you wait. I’d like to discuss your latest test results with you.”

“Well, I’m not dead yet, for which I’m grateful, so I’m assuming the treatment went better than expected. The odds of kicking the bucket were fairly high going into this. How am I doing, doc?” I’d taken to calling everybody, even the nurses, doc; I figured anyone who could make sense of the ridiculous number of wires, tubes, and other doohickeys in the room deserved the recognition. I suspected the nurses had clued in fairly quickly I couldn’t see jack shit without my glasses. “Also, thank you for my glasses. The cancer has beaten the crap out of my prescription, but at least they mostly work.”

Assuming I escaped the hospital for any period of time, I’d need to go to the eye doctor for a new pair, adding yet another bill to the pile, albeit a payment I’d have to dish out for immediately if I wanted the luxury of sight.