37.5

We have a conversation, all day, everyday. It is, basically, the same conversation, with minor variations. It goes something like this:

Have you taken it?
[Beep]
What is it?
37.1

What is it now?
[Beep]
37.2

Take it again.
[Beep]
What is it?
37.4

[Beep]
What is it?
37.3
Perhaps it'll go down.

What is it now?
[Beep]
37.2

What is it?
[Beep]
37.5
Right. Ring the hospital.
No. I'll take it again.
[Beep]
What is it?
37.5
They said 38.
They did not.
They did.
Take it again.
37.3

This conversation goes on, and on, and sometimes I ache with the immobility of it, the confinement of it: this is a conversation I cannot leave. I am trapped by it, listening for those numbers to rise, or to fall. By their rising or falling, my actions are decided.

At a temperature reading of 36.6, when the ear thermometer can be laid to one side, there is no conversation needed. I can leave the room, go back to work, drink tea, pop out for milk, muse about the evening.

But as the thermometer beeps, 37.1, I am edgy, watchful, cautious.

At 37.5 I am pacing about the room. The listing of numbers, like a rehearsal, a bouncing of sounds back and forth to each other, this ordeal is in full swing, and we cannot stop.

37.5. 37.6. 37.5. 37.4. 37.7.

On, and on, it goes. At night I sleep in my clothes in case the numbers stop, which they must do, at 38.0.

Day, or night, morning or evening. It doesn't matter. At 38.0, a different set of actions begin. I pick up the hospital bag and wrap scarves around my husband. I run and fetch the car, and order him to wait in the hall and not go back to settle in his office in his stubborn, stubborn way. Fifteen minutes later, I drop him at the Accident and Emergency unit which is the entry point to fluids, drips, bags, wires, tests and staying by his side until we know he will be rattled away on a trolley-bed to an isolation room in a ward where I can visit tomorrow.

These numbers define my life. They are neutropenia. And Dig is in hospital, again.