Six Letter Word [Kaylor]

June 2017

It took about two weeks after surgery to reach a point where I felt human again. The incision on my back was nothing more than a pink line, another scar to let fade with time. The one in my groin was still sensitive, but the nerve no longer shot pain down my leg, so it was a vast improvement. It felt weird not to take meds every few hours. Not to plan around chemo or radiation or even testing. I had only one doctor's appointment on the calendar for the whole month of June. Just one. That was the weirdest of all. Dad had come in at the end of the first week after surgery to spend a couple days as a family. The longer they're apart, the weirder it is to have Mom and Dad together, but even now, as a married woman with a family of my own, I really appreciated how hard they worked to keep things civil so that we could do things as the family I'd grown up with. It had been nice, spending evenings watching movies, putting together puzzles, and staging scrabble tournaments. At the end of their time in town, I'd rented out a small bowling alley so the five of us could bowl, boys vs. girls using average score to make up for the fact there were three girls and only two guys. Austin and Dad kicked our asses. Karlie may be a strong athlete, but she's a terrible bowler. Still, the five of us had fun drinking beer and laughing at the sheer number of gutter-balls we threw.

After that, Karlie and I decided to retreat to Rhode Island. We'd spent very little time outside New York since I'd been sick, but that home was where we'd gotten married, and it was getting to the time of year when the beach was warm enough to go and enjoy. We finally got to take the road trip we'd hoped for for our wedding day, Karlie at the wheel, hands intertwined, 1989 playing, just like it did on our first road trip. Those songs had a lot of memories attached to them, from the first time I shared them, apprehensive about how Karlie would receive an entire album of songs about my ex-girlfriend with only a tiny reference to her role in my life, to now, playing them as a throwback to the couple we'd been back then. We didn't know what my next test results would show. If I wasn't in remission, there wasn't a lot else for them to throw at it. It made it harder to take this road trip, knowing that after everything we'd tried, every step we'd taken to make me healthy again, it was still a possibility that it wasn't fixable. But I hoped that this would be a memory we'd love when we were old and gray. That we'd talk about this as that first road trip after I went into remission. We had both been forced to grow up a lot since the previous fall, when that one terrifying six letter word brought our world crashing to a halt. It was crazy to think how much could change between twenty-six and twenty-seven, and how much more I hoped would change before twenty-eight.

As soon as we arrived at the house, we changed for the beach and lounging by the pool. I eyed myself critically in the mirror, studying all the remnants of my treatment. I was starting to gain back the weight I'd lost to treatment, which was both welcome and difficult. I needed to gain, for sure. I was far too skinny. Even having gained some back, my clothes hung limply, and I still bruised on my hip-bones just from lying the wrong way on a sofa without enough padding, because of the way they jutted out beneath my skin. But in my job, gaining weight had always been the enemy, observed by people who don't know my business or my life and commented on. Still, I was sure even those assholes would agree I needed to put some on. Scars marked my skin, tattoos in remembrance of battles fought and hopefully won. The old one at my throat that thankfully continued to fade. There would, I thought, come a day when it was only noticeable if you were looking for it. My port still made a small bump under the skin of my chest, the two scars from its insertion barely visible, though the one by my collarbone remained more prominent than the one by its base. The scar from the removal of the inguinal lymph nodes was covered even in a bikini, located where only Karlie and my doctors would ever see, a good thing, as it remained darker and uneven, probably thanks to the way every move pulled on the line of the incision, distorting it slightly and preventing the skin from knitting cleanly. The one on my back was also more noticeable, in my opinion, than the one at my neck or my port scars, due to the length of the incision and the fact that it wasn't conveniently hideable amongst the normal creases of the neck. The worst one, by far, is the one that isn't directly attributable to cancer. The raised, uneven pucker from where the doctors removed the worst of the infection, making it possible for my body to fight the rest. The other visible consequence of that detour along my journey, my hearing aids were barely visible tucked behind my ears. I imagined when my hair grew back, they'd be almost undetectable unless you were looking for them. I knew the scars would fade with time. The old ones below my belly button from before Karlie aren't visible unless you're really looking. One day most of the new ones will all but vanish as well.

Karlie started to wonder where I was, what was taking so long and came looking, finding me still twisting in the mirror, examining every angle. It helped that the look in her eyes in the mirror was one of admiration. Sure, she could have said "you look gorgeous" and I would have tried to take that to heart, but the look she gave me, studying me up and down, that said it better and more believably than words ever could. Somehow, after everything, she still looked at me and saw someone sexy. "As tempting as it is to forgo going outside entirely and just keep you all for myself, I think you said you wanted to go for a walk on the beach?"

I threw a loose dress over my suit as a cover up, still not sure I was ready to walk the beach in less than that, and pulled a cap onto my head, the most secure cover for my head I could come up with. It was breezy down by the water and I didn't want to have to fight both my dress and my hat at the same time. I wanted to have a hand free to hold Karlie's as we strolled by the water. I wanted to be able to wade in and feel the waves crash on my feet, something I hadn't been able to do since starting treatment. We were even thinking of getting in the pool and splashing around, even though that meant I was going to have to take out my hearing aids because they weren't waterproof. Something I was definitely going to have to look into if I was going to make swimming a regular activity as I worked to regain lost strength to go with the lost weight. I knew I could trust Karlie to pay attention and make sure I could hear her, even without them. This was going to be a good week, I was sure, getting to just be wives. Other than the honeymoon and those short windows between chemo rounds, we really haven't had a chance to just be married. Being in Watch Hill meant that for the most part, we would be left alone. Mike, Jeff and Sean all had plans to take turns watching over us, but it wasn't like at home, or in LA, where there had to always be someone on guard. They could sleep at night, just as we did, and it typically took only one of them at a time, rather than trading off shifts when we were in the city. I knew that as we walked down to the sand, whoever was on duty would be keeping an eye on us, but wouldn't have to be right on top of us, for the most part.

We enjoyed the week, similar to our honeymoon in the way that we weren't particularly connected to the outside world. Neither of us answered work emails, or talked to our teams at all. Our phones were on airplane mode, so we could take pictures or video, but we didn't bother posting them, we could do that once we were back at the apartment in New York. No need to alert our fans to where we were. We knew they were eagerly awaiting the results just as we were, but there was no sense in getting them excited for nothing. We didn't know if I was in remission either, though I know we both tried not to worry about it. The scans and tests would come, and for now, there was nothing more we could be doing to make it happen. Dr. Miller had encouraged the trip, saying that just relaxing and having fun, doing what I wanted and enjoying my life were probably the best ways to help me to be as healthy as I could. Karlie even convinced me to take some long walks with short jogs in the middle, trying to help me get back in shape after months of being able to do little more than walk on a treadmill and some pretty basic yoga. And even that, I'd been avoiding since the last surgery. The nerve that had been damaged in the last operation still left some numbness and tingling in my left leg that didn't show signs of disappearing anytime soon, but as long as it wasn't painful, there was no reason I shouldn't do whatever I felt up to. I was cleared from that surgical standpoint. The only clearance I was still waiting for had to do with what was inside. Was it gone? And it was too soon to tell.

We could cook together, take walks on the beach, swim in the pool, read, and paint, and watch movies while we cuddled. It felt weird not to have anywhere to be or anything to do. I would mess around on the piano or guitar, not really writing anything in particular, but just because I couldn't stay away from the music. For the first time in my life, I let someone into that process who wasn't a musician. But the look in her eyes, that first time that I said I was heading to the music room, and did she want to read her book there, made it worth the slight uneasiness that came with sharing my work before it was strictly finished. It was a new level of intimacy for us, letting her be present while I worked. As odd as it felt, it also felt right. She hadn't been around for much of my previous writing cycle, the one for 1989. The majority of those songs had already been written when I fell head over heels for her. The couple songs that referenced her had been tacked on in the brief moments we WEREN'T enjoying the bliss of new love.

When it came to whatever was going to come next, well, I tended to write at three in the morning in a random hotel room on tour, and with her own work schedule and the need to keep things quiet, if I'd had the pleasure of having her around at three a.m. I was enjoying her presence rather than working. And once tour ended, I was taking a break, so I didn't have the focus I would usually have had, that she might have noticed. And then I got sick and my writing became an afterthought, something I did when I felt okay, but not something that happened as much as it might have under any other circumstances. But now, waiting to see what came next, I could take some time to really start thinking about where the next album would go. There were so many things that had changed in my life since the last one. My perspective on my career had shifted a lot, after spending months facing the reality of my own mortality. I still loved it, and missed the fans, and wanted to get back to it, but awards and critical acclaim held less allure than they once had. Going forward it was about having fun and being in love and writing about those things. Sure, there would be a few songs about the hard parts. It had definitely been one of the hardest things I had ever experienced, or would ever experience. I'd lost a lot. But I'd gained more. Like a wife whose face lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning when I asked if she wanted to listen to the musical ramblings that happened BEFORE the magic. Karlie would sit on the sofa, reading a book, while I played whatever popped into my head, sometimes my own songs, sometimes covers, sometimes innovating something new and recording it for future use. Every now and then, she'd look up from her book and smile, or mention that she liked a particular song, some of which made me laugh because they were actually covers, songs she should have recognized. I forget sometimes how non-musical she actually is, bless her.

But all good things must come to an end, and as we moved into the second half of June, the time came to head back to the city for yet another round of tests. We got in late the night before the appointment, having squeezed as much beach time out of our last day in Rhode Island as we could. Karlie and I had talked, and she was planning to pick up her schedule a bit in July, take some time around her birthday so we could see her family in August, and start school again in the Fall. Obviously, if the test results weren't what we hoped, we might have to reassess, but it was time to stop letting my cancer rule our lives. She'd been so fortunate that most of her major campaigns had been willing to work around my treatments and her desire to be with me through that, but it wouldn't last forever. As for me, thanks to the previous few weeks off chemo, I was finally starting to feel like myself again. I hadn't started growing my hair back just yet, which was frustrating, but I could eat, I wasn't in pain, and I was getting stronger each day. It meant I was looking forward to getting back into the studio and taking what I'd written, shaping it into actual songs and actually doing some recording. I'd pretty much decided on a direction for the next album, and was really excited to start putting it together and making new music to share with the fans.

* * *

Taylor lay on the hospital bed, sleeping. There were a couple IV bags, dripping whatever medicine they contained into her accessed port. I'd seen it a hundred times before, though she rarely slept at chemo. I wasn't sure why she was wearing a hospital gown either, but I figured maybe it was for testing reasons. I knew Dr. Hernandez wanted to check her incisions from the lymph node removal, so maybe the gown was for easy access. She was thinner, again, or so it seemed to me, and I wondered how she'd lost the weight again so fast after our trip. She seemed pale, too, a contrast to the healthy glow she'd had at home when we went to bed, but I figured that was just the hospital fluorescent lighting. I imagined if I could see myself, I would also look pale. Most unusual to me was that her head was bare. She almost never left her scarf or hat off unless we were sleeping at home. Even there sometimes she'd sleep in one if the room was cooler. She lazily turned her head toward me, and her baby blue eyes betrayed an exhaustion that didn't make sense. The more I studied my wife, the more tired and sick she appeared. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her lips were dry and cracked. "Glasses?" she asked, her voice faint and a bit rough, probably from sleep. "Hearing aids?" I found each of the things she needed on the side table and wondered why she'd taken them off.

I didn't recognize the nurse who came into the room at all, from any of our previous visits. Where was Makenna? "You're awake, Mrs. Swift-Kloss!" the nurse greeted Taylor, as though surprised to find her conscious. She had a lilting Irish accent I knew I would remember, had we ever met before. "How are you feeling? Not in any pain, love?"

"Mmm-mmm" Taylor hummed her denial of any pain, shaking her head. "I'm okay, thanks Maggie." I couldn't believe how weak she sounded. She wasn't supporting her speech at all, there was no power behind it. It was barely recognizable as my wife's voice. "It's so hard to breathe." It was only then that I heard how labored her breathing was, saw how her lips and fingernails were tinged purple.

"Let's get some oxygen flowing then," Maggie said gently, reaching behind her to pull out a long thin tube which she slipped over Taylor's head, adjusting the nose pieces so they fit comfortably. "There, see if that's not better." Taylor nodded in response, but I could see she was already drifting away, about to fall back asleep. Why was my wife struggling to breathe? What had I missed? "She's asleep, love, can I get YOU anything while I'm here? You really should eat something, Mrs. Swift-Kloss. Watching you waste away isn't going to make letting go any easier on her, is it? You don't have to be strong for her, but she does need to know you'll be okay without her, hard though it will be."

And that's when I realized. Taylor was dying. The cancer had metastasized to her lungs, which is why she seemed so sick, and tired, and was having trouble breathing. But she couldn't have gotten this sick overnight? Could she? Why did everyone seem to accept this as fact? Had I blacked out months of this? What year was it? My internal panic was interrupted by Taylor breathing my name "Karlie? Karlie, it's time..."

Karlie had slept right through the alarm, and it looked like whatever dream she was having wasn't one she wanted to continue. She looked really upset, and as much as she was usually a bitch to wake up, I was hopeful she wouldn't mind too much, given that I had my tests today and we needed to get ready to go to the Institute. I gently shook her shoulder, saying "Karlie? Karlie, it's time to get up, babe. We're supposed to be at the hospital in an hour." She awoke reluctantly, but when she saw me bent over her on the bed, she smiled widely and pulled me down into a kiss. I wish she was always this happy to see me in the morning. I could tell she didn't want to talk about the dream. I imagined it was one of those nightmares where I was dead or dying, brought on by the anxiety we were both feeling about the tests later that day. Obviously we both hoped everything would be okay, that they would come back NED and I would be free to keep living my life, to start putting this chapter of my life behind me and start planning our future. Music and tours and maybe kids one day. It felt weird to be the optimistic one, but I could understand Karlie's fears too. This was a big deal, possibly reaching the end of treatment. Because just because I had no evidence of disease didn't mean I was cured, or that I couldn't get sick again. It just meant that for the moment, I was as healthy as modern medicine could make me.

It felt oddly full-circle to enter the hospital through the front door, ride the elevator up to the main floor for The Institute for Head, Neck and Thyroid Cancer, and sign in at the desk, receiving my usual pair of bracelets, blue with my information, red because I'm still allergic to penicillin. My appointment was another early morning one, to keep me from attracting unwanted attention. There was only one other pair in the waiting area, what looked like a mom and a teenage girl. I offered a small smile, and the daughter gave me an anxious one in return. I hoped, for her sake, that they were wrong. That she was here for a bunch of tests that would rule out the kind of cancer I'd been battling since that day back in September when my whole world turned upside down. If they were right, I hoped hers hadn't spread. That she would have an easier fight than mine.

It was weird to have just a PET scan and some blood work planned for the morning. But ideally, there was nothing left to biopsy. There was no need to look at my vocal chords, they were as healed as they were going to get. Dr. Hernandez did plan to stop by to inspect my incisions, but that was more a formality than anything. After everything we'd been through, they trusted us to know if something wasn't healing as it should. I'd invited Mom to come to this appointment. She might not have been present for the first diagnostic appointment, but she'd been at most of the major ones since. She declined, knowing that Karlie and I had this under control. We'd started this as a pair, and we would finish it that way as well. Karlie took my hand in hers and squeezed, leaning to plant a kiss on my scarf-covered head. We were nervous, but maybe less so than the first time we sat in this waiting area. "Taylor?"

I grinned widely to see Deshaun and Andy in the room, waiting for me. I gave both of them huge hugs, any anxiety I'd had about this appointment melting to hear them yell "EAGLE!" and perform their signature move once again. We'd left my port unaccessed, unsure how they wanted to do this. We didn't know what order they were going for with the testing, or if they wanted me accessed for the PET or not, so both of my favorite techs got a chance to push a needle into my port. Deshaun drew the sample for the blood work, and Andy was the one to give me the radioactive tracer for the PET. I decided it was never going to not feel weird to have the cold of the tracer spread through my veins. I'd had so many of these I'd lost count, but it still felt disconcerting to be getting cold from the inside out. If this went well, and the results were as we hoped, this would be the routine for all my future visits here. Just blood work and a PET. Radiology was ready for me fairly quickly, so I found myself on the table, handing Karlie my hearing aids, letting her cover me with a blanket because I still got cold during that long slow journey while they got images of every inch of my insides. She bent down to give me another gentle kiss, signed 'I love you' and headed into the booth. She had one last PET scan playlist set up. Although I couldn't hear them as well as I used to, it was sweet to know she was still thinking of me and things that would make this better for me. There were a lot of songs about fighting, and winning, and even my own song, Long Live. I may have teared up a bit hearing the line "I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you," because I knew exactly what my wife was thinking when she picked it. That even if the dragon won, we wouldn't change these last few months. We would happily go back and live the alternate reality where I was healthy and none of this happened, but if it had to, we wouldn't change that we'd lived it together. It didn't feel any different than all the ones I'd had before. Just lie back and try to occupy my mind while the machine did its work, searching for any areas where there was abnormally high consumption of radioactive sugar. Red used to be my favorite color, but my goal was to see almost none of it on my scans, when they were all finished.

The waiting was harder, this time. It gave me time to imagine all the worst-case scenarios. That the scans still weren't clear. That there were more, new spots, that had grown while we were working to get rid of the ones we knew about. That they'd been hiding there all along, just waiting for me to discontinue chemo so they could flourish. Karlie could feel me worrying. We didn't try to pretend we didn't need to hold each other while we waited. We sat together, holding each other, my head on her shoulder. There wasn't much to say. We knew what we wanted, and what we were scared of, but neither of us wanted to voice our fears. It still felt like that was giving them power, somehow, putting them out into the world. Which was silly, but it still felt that way. We both started when the knock at the door came. Dr. Miller filed in, with Andy and Deshaun and Makenna and also a radiologist I'd never seen before, but who introduced himself as Dr. Singh. This was it. It felt like the room suddenly didn't have enough oxygen. I felt Karlie's hand squeeze mine, a reminder to ground myself. Whatever the outcome was, I had her. We had each other.

Dr. Singh smiled. He pushed the USB drive in his hand into the viewer on the wall and pushed a few buttons, bringing the screen to life. "Before I put this up on the screen, I want you to understand that the image on the left is from your very first scan, back in September. The one on the right is from today." I was glad he'd warned us, I guess, since seeing all the red from that first scan would have been terrifying. I suppose I would have figured it out, given the activity in my neck from the thyroid I no longer possessed, but in the moment I was sure I would have just freaked out. And then the image loaded. That scary collection of red and orange on the left, and...none where it didn't belong on the right. I burst into tears, seeing the clean scan. I'd actually done it. Unless my blood work numbers said something different, that scan told the story. I was NED. No Evidence of Disease. In remission. Healthy. Karlie held me tight, wiping her own tears. Dr. Singh excused himself from the room. He wasn't part of this journey like the others had been. But Dr. Miller and the rest of my team surrounded us in a group hug, celebrating the success we'd achieved.

I knew it wasn't the end. I'd be back in a month to do this all again. This was the first day of a five year journey to them declaring me cured. But the treatment phase was officially over for now. There was nothing more medicine could do to keep me healthy. It was up to me to go back to the ordinary ways, like eating mostly healthy, and working out with my wife (well, building up to being able to work out with her), and generally taking care of myself. And in the meantime, my body would slowly restore itself to something resembling what it was before a doctor first uttered that terrifying six letter word. My hair would grow back, the scars would fade, and my ribs would become less prominent. It would all just take time. But for the first time since that fateful day in September, I could walk out the door of the hospital knowing I was healthy. I was no longer a cancer patient, but a cancer survivor. Dr. Miller said we would undoubtedly have questions, even now, and not to hesitate to call, or email, because she was still my doctor for as long as I would let her be. It would be a while before our professional relationship ended, as she would still be around for my future scans. But for now, she was sending me into the world to live my life.

Karlie finally confessed the dream she'd had. The way that the fears that things had gone the other way turned into a terrifying image of what it might look like to lose me, slowly, and painfully. And it was my turn to hold her while she cried tears of relief that for now, there was no chance of those fears being realized. The team left us to ourselves, telling us to take all the time we needed, just the two of us, with the beautiful clear scan on the wall, reminding us that I was as better as modern medicine could make me.

I snapped a picture of the side by side scans, captioning them 'before' and 'after' and fired off texts to all of the people who loved me. My parents and my brother and my in-laws. Ed, who had seen the original before. Abigail, who hadn't, but who knew to some degree what it had looked like. Mom called right away to express her joy at seeing the clean scan. Ed actually showed up at our front door, having flown into town for something completely unrelated which he promptly cancelled, celebrating was much more important. We called an impromptu party for anyone in the area to come share our celebration, partying into the night. I played a bit, and sang, and several others took the mic as well. It felt like old times, and I liked it. The first day of the rest of my life, cancer free. Or, as cancer free as I could be. I planned to post the same pic I'd sent everyone on social media the next day. It would answer some of the questions I hadn't been ready to address with the fans before. Just how sick I had been, and how far I had come. And it would also let them celebrate with me. I wasn't going to be ready to tour for a bit yet, but I was definitely ready to start planning for it, now that I had fewer fears about not being able to keep up, or having to stop in the middle. The album could come together, now that I was healthy. I had so many ideas, and no real clue what direction I was going to take, but I knew for sure I already had one song that was going to be on it. The one Ed and I wrote a while back, the first one after I recovered from the infection. And one song was a good enough place to start.

* * *

Thank you, all of you, for coming with me on this journey. For loving me and supporting me, and for giving me the privacy to fight this battle on my own terms. You are a constant source of strength and inspiration, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I'm publishing my journals, because they tell our story at its truest. Better than the media ever could. I'd much rather you hear the words from me, and not from someone who doesn't know me, or us. Thank you for reading. <3 Taylor

Author's Note:

This is it. The last full chapter of Six Letter Word. Thought I'd better get it published before Taylor kills us all with whatever she's planning.

Thank you, all of you, for reading this. It's longer than most of the Harry Potter novels. If you've stuck with it the whole way through, I love you for that. There is an epilogue yet to come...probably pretty quickly, as it's already written. It's been just under a year from start to finish, which is incredible to me. You've read this from all over the world. At last count there were 50 countries and every continent but Antarctica. I can't believe that many of you wanted to read my work. But thanks.

Whatever comes next, I'll be here, writing something, so be on the lookout.

❤️💛💚💙💜