6Diary of a Young Girl
By Erin Hill
Chapter One
Erika's diary. READ THIS WHEN I DIE. THIS MEANS YOU!
June 3, 2008
Dear Leigh,
Here we go again. I spent all day at the hospital, being poked and prodded with all number of funny-looking instruments, by doctors with their eyebrows furrowed in intense concentration. It was almost comical. The one breath of fresh air was Jenny, who provided as many wise cracks as usual. She joked while taking my blood pressure that I just say no to the pressure she was applying. I groaned. It was a horrible joke.
I should get the results from these tests sometime next week. In the mean time, I have, um, finals. Loads of fun. My bio test should be particularly entertaining, as I know more about cell growth and division than any other sixteen-year-old I know. Those weirdo genius kids who go to college at age eleven, I don't count them. I don't know them!
Way off topic, I know. I kind of specialize in that. I blame the meds.
Sigh. I need to go study now. Life sucks, but death is worse.
Erika.
June 4, 2008
Dear Leigh,
How random is it to start a diary on June 3? That's just weird. Most people start diaries on important days, like New Year's or their birthday or the day they lose their virginity or something. I totally made that last one up.
But June 3 could turn out to be important, if the results of those tests are what I dread. I mean, Doctor Morris told me to get them for some reason. He wouldn't just order a bunch of tests like the ones two years ago if I was still in full remission. Obviously, he thinks there is a chance I'm not, and I want to be damn sure of it.
At school today, we were presenting our final history projects. Ben's and my video on the second half and immediate aftermath of the Civil War was by far the best. No contest. Zack and Andrew did a life action movie about the War of 1812 that was hilarious but with some factual errors. Our documentary had serious cinematic merit. Mr. R asked for a copy of it on DVD. And then in lunch, Ben threw a handful of napkins at me. I hit him with my Bio notebook.
He totally deserved it.
Homework calls…
Erika
June 5, 2008
Dear Leigh,
I realize that you have no idea who the hell I am or what I've been talking about for the last few days. Horribly bad manners on my part. My name is Erika Faith Durham, and as you can probably infer, I have cancer. I was diagnosed two years ago. It's breast cancer. Who knew that fourteen year olds could get breast cancer? I was fourteen when diagnosed and I'm sixteen now.
I live in Rocky Point, Massachusetts, which is on the southern coast of Cape Cod, right about where the Cape and the rest of Massachusetts meet. It's a gorgeous, tourist-filled town with (thank God) a renowned hospital. I got my diagnosis at the end of eighth grade, and I was in remission, although hairless and energy-less by Christmas.
I live for soccer. I've played since before I could walk, and I'm the captain of the school's varsity girl's team, which I have been a member of since the beginning of my high school career. Yeah. A freshman on the varsity team and a sophomore as captain. But if these test results are what I fear they will be, it's bye-bye captaincy, hello hospital ward. Dammit!
And yeah, I play offense.
I come from a pretty normal family. There's me and my mom and dad and three sisters. Ellie is the oldest sister. (She will hurt you if you call her Eleanor. My nickname for her is Rigby. Like the Beatles song.) She's turning twenty-two in a few weeks and just finished up her junior year at college. English major. I know, I know. Ellie is pretty much your stereotypical oldest sister. She's way too responsible for her own good and she won't be seen dead without her Purell on her person somewhere. I love her to pieces, but sometimes she needs to loosen up. I don't think she got drunk once in college, and that is not a good thing. Then comes Erin, and she's kind of a ballet-dancing bad ass. Er is nineteen and finishing her freshman year at the Boston Conservatory. She takes her classical ballet training and turns it upside down and inside out, on stage and in life. She's the rebellious one, to an extent that there is a rebellious sister among us. Then comes me. You've already heard or read or whatever about me, and you'll learn plenty more as time goes on. The youngest is Emily. She's thirteen and my awesome little sister. She's still figuring out what she wants to do (who isn't?) so right now she's just having fun living her life. She helps out with mine a certain amount, too, as we're the only two living at home full time these days. Emily is finishing seventh grade. Random word association type observation: I was in seventh grade when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. What a season.
My parents are both pretty normal, too. They manage to handle four teenaged or early twenties daughters, including one with cancer, incredibly well. They have also figured out a way to pay for two college educations and my treatments at the same time. Not even I know how they do that, and it's my treatment they're paying for.
And then there are my friends. Oh, my friends, my friends, my friends. What a weird group.
First and definitely foremost is Ben. Ben Krueger has been my absolute best friend in the whole wide world for a decade. We met in youth soccer at age six, and as they say, the rest is history. We've been inseparable ever since. Ben is pretty much amazing, and it would be a complete and totally lie to say that I haven't had occasional thoughts about what it would be like to date him. Okay, fine, they were more than occasional. Frequent. Daily. Constant. I am pretty much in love with that boy, although I am way too scared to actually say anything. But the short version is that Ben is an amazing dude.
Devin Thomas is my closest girl friend. She and I are on the soccer team together (that's the only place I meet people!). She has the personality of all of my sisters combined, which is rather intimidating. She's really intense, and a real hard-core joker. Her idea of fun is to steal all my clothes from my locker while I'm in the shower after a game. Marching out onto the field wearing only a towel with my hair dripping all over my shoulders after winning a state semi-finals game is not exactly my idea of a party, but it's the kind of thing I would do to her. So I really shouldn't talk. But I am. I'm obnoxious that way.
There are all the other girls on the team, too, and there is no way I can give a short but adequate description of all of them. But I will say that all of them are amazing and I love them all.
And then there's Jenny. I think I've mentioned her before. Whenever I'm in the hospital, Jenny is my nurse. She's twenty-nine, and has the perfect mix of mom and big sister, which is important. When I woke up in a cold sweat after a nightmare while in St Jerome's recovering from my surgery two years ago, she rushed in with water and talked me back to sleep. A few days later, the night before my discharge, we had a killer pillow fight. Almost knocked over my heart monitor.
There are other people, of course, but these are the major players. I consider all of them family, whether they actually are or not.
This long entry was my way of saying that my day was incredibly normal and I'm bored stiff. But the Red Sox creamed the Rays in quite the exciting game today. Coco Crisp charged the mound. My man Jon Lester (when I meet him, we can share chemotherapy stories) was the Sox pitcher.
Erika
June 6, 2008
Dear Leigh,
Guess who got her test results back today! Yeah. That would be me.
Dr. Morris, my cancer doctor, called and told us to come in to the hospital to talk to him about the scans. Warning bell went off in my head. This is a bad sign. If it was good news, he would just say so over the phone, and we would schedule the next round of testing for a few months later.
He requested a private chat with Mom and Dad before I went in. When Mom came out of that talk, she had obviously been crying. I asked her what was wrong and she refused to tell me. Dr. Morris got all of us in his office and told me the results. Remission was over. The tumor was back. And worse than that, my cancer was now terminal, so far advanced that almost any treatments would be useless. And then he dropped the real bomb.
I, Erika Durham, will be dead by Thanksgiving.
Well, I have to say that hearing the forecast of your own death from someone who does this every day and gets paid for it certainly puts things in perspective.
No, I'm not hating on Dr. Morris, he's a great doctor, but he's not the one who won't live to see their driver's license. Or prom. Or even possibly Homecoming. Christmas is out of the question. Election Day is border line. Might make it, might not. Predicting the exact day of my death is kind of hard.
I am dying. I will be dead in a matter of months. I will never graduate from high school or college. At this rate I won't lose my virginity, and I might die unkissed. I will never get married and I will never have children. I won't live to see the end of soccer season this year. I won't live to see if Heath Ledger gets a posthumous Oscar for The Dark Knight.
I'm dying.
Holy fuck, I'm dying.
I've known for two years that this was a very real possibility, but I've never fully internalized it.
I am dying.
I'm scared and confused and manic. But mostly scared. So I'm doing what I always do when I'm scared. I'm calling Ben.
Erika
-Later-
There is a very real reason Ben Krueger is my best friend. He demonstrated today. I called him after the talk with Dr. Morris. He ran up the street to my house before we even hung up the phone. And then together we ran through the woods and over the hill to the school soccer field.
We didn't even talk. When he got here, we just looked at each other and took off running, full speed. Not running to work out, running to freak out. Running to leave everything behind, running from the pain and confusion and the anger and the fear. I ran so fast, faster than ever before. I ran straight to the soccer field at school and just fell down screaming and crying. In a weird kind of way, I was probably subconsciously running away from Ben, too. He's amazing, but sometimes he's too good to be true. There I was, running away from him, and he chased me without saying anything. I beat him handily, too. I'm dying, and I'm still a faster runner than my best friend. I was collapsing on the field crying as he ran through the gate.
Why? Why, why, why? I asked that question a million times two years ago, and I thought I had the answer, but now I find myself questioning everything I thought I figured out since my initial diagnosis.
It was at this point in my pretty-much breakdown that Ben made me love him even more. He didn't say anything. He barely even met my eyes. He just sat down next to me and slowly wrapped his arms around me, making sure I wouldn't shake him off before going any farther. I didn't. He hugged me tight. Really, really tight. I was crying buckets, with those itchy tears that hurt as they go down your cheeks but you can't bring yourself to wipe away.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably less than five minutes, he stood up and pulled me up with him. He linked his arm with mine and we just stood there, looking out over the pitch. Eight months ago I had been running around on that same pitch with a trophy and my team, a large red C emblazoned on my jersey. Now here I was again, not because of Captain, but because of Cancer.
He asked me if I was scared. I told him I was terrified.
We stood there talking and hugging each other for a good three hours. Through most of it, we just talked. And there were multiple occasions where I spontaneously burst into tears, and he just held me closer and talked to me. A lot. He cracked a lot of incredibly lame jokes. After two years of my chemo and radiation induced mood issues, he has learned how to read my cancer moods like a picture book, and he is fantastic at adapting as my mood swings take over.
Another best friend might shy away from the fact that I'm dying. Ben is a saint.
Erika
June 7, 2008
Dear Leigh,
It's all over.
Not for me, silly, for Hillary! She suspended her campaign and endorsed Obama today. While she could have gone farther in her endorsement, like, say, taking back her "not ready for the three a.m. phone call" comment or any number of other thick skulled things she said about him during the campaign, she did her job. Convincing actress, I must say.
But the important thing now is that it's all Obama all the way from here on out. That's all that matters.
And the Sox beat the Mariners today. That matters too. Youk's errorless streak ended, but he had a little help from his friends in the win.
Erika
June 8, 2008
Dear Leigh,
Suicide is a weird, weird idea. Why the hell would anyone end their own life? Shit happens. It happens to me. I've gone through—hell, continue to go through—what many people consider the be all end all of human existence. What is considered the ultimate good deed is curing cancer.
Shit happens. It happens all the fucking time. And guess what? It will keep happening. I've been through the worst of the fucking worst, and you know what? I still having fucking hope.
People who commit suicide are either cowards or extremely mentally ill. The cowards think that because they feel that they have nothing left to live for, it's worth depriving the world of their existence. Well, good for you. The world's overpopulation issues thank you. Those cowards who commit suicide can't deal with the fact that they might be wrong. There might be something worth living for. Someone out there might actually love them. And I'm not even going to comment on the mentally ill.
To all the suicidal people out there: believe me when I tell you that your pathetic excuses for angst are nothing compared to what I've been through. At this point, I would give almost anything to make my life longer. But you know what? I have no control over it whatsoever. When you know you are going to die, you actually appreciate the gift known as life. So don't talk to me about helplessness or despair. Because whatever you've been through, I've been through worse. There is a fate worse than death: chemotherapy. That stuff is horrible.
Erika
June 9, 2008
Dear Leigh,
I told the team today. It was horrible. We called a joint meeting of the boys and girls teams and the captains (me for the girls, duh, and Jason Browning for the boys) addressed the teams together.
I told them that obviously, everybody knows that I have been fighting cancer for two years and it was only a matter of time before I came out of remission, and unfortunately, now was that time. I told them that I was incredibly proud to have served as captain this year and so, so proud of our accomplishments and our championship. I tried to say something about how the trophy doesn't matter as much as how you play the game, but I choked and just finished by telling them that I won't be able to serve as captain next year. I might not even be able to play next year.
I might not be alive next year.
They were great. Nobody looked at me weird or tried to get away from the angst of it all. We had a huge group hug and the girls team thoroughly embarrassed me with locker room stories. Like that time last October when they stole my clothes and I had to run out onto the field with more than a thousand spectators looking on, wearing nothing but a towel. I love those girls so much. They made life tolerable. Until this week, sophomore year was the best year of my life, mostly because the season started the year off so well. It just went up from there, really. Other than winning State, I can't really pinpoint one thing as the most amazing thing that happened making this year awesome. It was just like a string of awesomeness, tying all these little things together.
Okay, I'm lying through my teeth, sort of. I was getting serious vibes from Ben all year. It felt great.
We've known each other for so long that we can just read each other, and I could tell that he was slightly on edge all year. It was like he knew that this was kind of our last chance at glory, both on the field an in our lives. Mine, at least. He's got a much longer life expectancy than me at this point. Almost everybody does.
I'm beginning to accept this. Telling the teams today was a major step in that direction. And it was incredibly, incredibly hard. One of the hardest things I've ever done. And believe me, I've done some hard things.
I may be accepting it, but I still don't think I fully realize what it means. I don't know when I will. At this point, I just want to keep my head above water and attempt to die with some semblance of hope and peace and closure and all that good stuff.
No, I don't know how to do that, either.
Erika
June 10, 2008
Dear Leigh,
I had radiation prep today, for the first time in a long time. I had to leave school early to get to the hospital. Mom came and picked me up, and I watched 10 Things I Hate About You with Emily after I got home. Rest in peace, Heath Ledger.
It's been a week since I had those tests that told me the cancer is back, and so much and so little has changed. As I was sitting in the room in the hospital as they were doing all these scans and imaging to figure out exactly where on my body to aim the radiation, I was just thinking (there's a surprise!) about how I've changed in the last week. (See, Barack? Change we can believe in!) It's kind of a weird feeling to sit there as doctors create lots of very complicated charts and diagrams and images showing exactly where to aim radioactive material into your boob. That feeling is weird enough, but it's even weirder to know that this is a last ditch effort to save your life. This won't save my life, and everybody knows it. But still, nobody has given up on that miracle yet. It's kind of a waste, really. I actually think it would be easier to begin preparing to die now, rather than keep up this treatment in the insane hopes that something will save me. This cancer is going to kill me in a matter of months, and I don't see the point in getting my hopes up.
I don't want to die. Obviously. Nobody in their right mind does. But I also don't want false hope. If I know it's all over (and it pretty much is, but no one will tell me that with quite that level of clarity), I'll have an easier time accepting it, like some kind of fate or destiny or something, even though that idea is vaguely ridiculous. If I know there's nothing that anyone or anything can do for me, I hope I will eventually accept it and come to peace with it. Because if I don't, I'm kind of screwed.
I'm screwed anyway, but I want to die with that elusive inner peace thing going on, not in turmoil and denial. That would suck.
Erika
A/N: This started out as my NaNoWriMo project, but I failed miserably (only got to about 17,500 words). Now I'm trying to just get it done. Yes, I am aware that I have the same first name as one of Erika's sisters, but she is no way, shape or form based on me. We could not be more different. No, this is not a true story, but the Red Sox games mentioned are real, and so is the 2008 election news Erika talks about.