We go on like that for a while. He tries to convince me that chemo’s the way to go and I try to avoid the reality that I’ve got this thing growing in my brain that may or may not kill me before I have a chance to settle down and maybe squeeze out a kid or two.
I’m only 24 years old.
This can’t be happening.
Chapter Two
Being the Entertainment
Jace
I knew when I went into medicine that it wasn’t going to be an easy thing. That’s not why I did it. I’m not a doctor because I have some delusion of always being able to save the day, and I didn’t go into oncology because it’s an easy specialty to deal with.
Still, it never gets easy telling someone they have cancer.
“Hey,” I call to Melissa, my girlfriend, “I’m going to be out for a couple of hours.”
“All right,” she calls back from the other room.
Melissa: she’s been with me since before I graduated med school. We both knew that my life wouldn’t slow down after graduation, but we only knew that intellectually.
The reality has been a bit harder on our relationship than either of us had expected.
It was her idea for me to start telling her that I’m “going out,” rather than “I’m going to work.” In reality, I don’t know if it’s made things any better between us, or if it’s actually changed anything at all.
I’m not headed to the hospital, though.
I didn’t get a page or a phone call. I’m not scheduled to be in, and I’m not on call.
Where I’m going, well, it’s just part of the reality of a recent med school graduate in the second decade of the new millennium in America.
“Recent med school graduate” these days means anyone who’s still looking at six figures in student loan debt. At the rate I’m going, I’m going to be a recent grad for at least another decade.
I’m wearing my finest set of clothes, and I’m just hoping that I don’t get recognized by anyone while I’m out on the town. What I’m doing is a risk in a number of ways, and I’d really rather avoid an awkward situation if at all possible.
“When do you think you’re going to be home?” Melissa asks.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I don’t think it’ll be any later than midnight, though.”
“All right,” she says. “Just remember the rules.”
Ah, the rules. I couldn’t forget them.
Where I’m going, what I’m doing tonight…it wasn’t my idea, and it took Melissa a while to open me up to it as a possibility.
You hear things all the time about people who do what I do for my second job, and none of them were things that I saw as being compatible with my station as a doctor or as a man in a committe
d relationship.
Unfortunately, with the way the interest is accruing on those student loans, I had to find something to fill in the gaps.
“A bit heavy on the cologne, don’t you think?” Melissa asks. The fact that she’s asking from the other room is enough for me to wash my wrists and my neck until I can barely smell the stuff.
I dry myself and button my shirt back up before I take one more look in the mirror.
Sure, Melissa may have talked me into doing this initially, but the fact remains that I’ve come to love what I do. If nothing else, it’s a great way to disconnect from my day job.
I walk out into the living room, but I don’t bother asking Melissa how I look. I just give her a kiss on the forehead and tell her that I’ll be back before too long.