We'll Get Through This

Part 16

Over the next four weeks, things slowly started to go back to normal in the Bishop-Deluca house. Carina went back to work the day after her appointment, and while the first day wore her out to the point that she napped for three hours when she got home, she was happy to be back at work. She started slow, only working two days the first week, increasing a little every week until she was working full days again the week before her next appointment.

Rowan got over Hand, Foot, and Mouth first, but Maya and Carina decided to just keep her home until Maya went back to work because there was no way Carina could get the toddler to daycare without carrying her, especially because Rowan liked to kick off sometimes. Nora was right behind her sister in getting better which was good because as soon as her mouth blisters healed and she could suck on her fingers again, she was back to her normal, happy self.

It ended up taking Maya five more days for her blisters to completely go away in her mouth, meaning she was home with the twins for over a week. By the time she went back to work, the amount of paperwork she was behind on meant that she was working every single day for two weeks straight, not something she loved because it meant the twins were in daycare every day since Carina couldn't be home alone with them. There were a few mornings that either Amelia, Teddy, or Laila would come over and hang out with Carina and the girls and then help take them to daycare for the afternoon, giving Carina time with the twins in a way that made sure that everyone was also taken care of in the way they needed to be.

Carina had had an appointment that Dr. Cho had called her and asked her to do about a week before her actual appointment for a simulation radiation treatment. Carina insisted Maya did not need to come for it because all she did was go in and lay in the radiation machine for an hour so they could map exactly how her treatments were going to go and Maya had fully planned on not listening to her wife, but a 5-alarm fire changed her plans, meaning Carina had gone to the appointment alone on her lunch break one week before her post-op appointment. She had come home from that appointment with a few small dot "tattoos" as guide marks for the radiation which Carina didn't love, but she knew they were necessary and she just tried to ignore them.

Maya and Carina also both went to a few appointments therapy appointments, Carina with the therapist they met during her pre-op appointment and Maya opting to go back to Dr. Lewis, wanting someone she was comfortable with. That, combined with Carina feeling better every day, helped ease their fears and make them both feel a little less overwhelmed by everything. There were still small reminders of the fact that Carina was in fact, in the middle of her cancer journey, but most of the time, they didn't even think about it. However, the night before Carina's next appointment, reality started to set in again.

"So, my appointment is at 11 tomorrow," Carina said, "So I am going to work in the morning and then I will meet you at Dr. Cho's office."

"You're working tomorrow?" Maya said, confused, "I thought you were off?"

"I am off in the afternoon," Carina said as she pulled on her pajamas, "But I decided working in the morning would help distract me a little."

"Oh," Maya said, going into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

"Why?" Carina said, following her.

"I guess I just thought maybe we could spend the morning as a family before you start the next part of your treatment and aren't feeling well again," Maya said, grabbing her toothbrush.

"Bambina, I will still feel fine after my treatment tomorrow," Carina said, "It takes a few weeks before radiation treatments start having physical effects on people."

"I know," Maya sighed, "It's just...I guess this is just making all of this feel real again, that you are still going through treatments for your cancer and I know that you have been healing this entire time from surgery for it, but it has just kinda felt like that wasn't what was going on and tomorrow, that all changes again."