Kingdom Come Undone

Try, Try, Try - Part 1

"Isn't this a bit extreme, Emily?"

Alison asked from my guestroom door as Carter and I hovered over the queen-sized bed in the room.

"Shh..." I whispered behind me, before turning back, "A little to the right there, Carter."

Carter moved his camera flashlight to his right to shine a light on Jacob's back, "And the Benedryl will really keep him knocked out?"

"It should." I shrugged, lifting up his left arm and dropping it only to watch it fall back to the bed. "Just to explain what I'm doing for you both. Using these two fingers, I'm feeling up and down his spine to try and locate this first tumor. Because those assholes at Johns Hopkins said they 'needed a day' to gather his past scans, all I know is that somewhere along this medial throa – oh, there it is. Okay, so the tumor is located between the T7 and T8 vertebrae on his spine. For reference, these vertebrae effect nerve functionality in the gallbladder, diaphragm, intestines, liver, stomach, spleen, pancreas, appendix, kidneys – "

"So basically everything in his fucking torso?" Alison whispered, suddenly between the both of us at the edge of the bed.

"More like trachea to colon." I sighed, "I mean, good news is that it is pretty small, feels like a pea to my touch, and I do have to exert some pressure on his spine in order to feel in between there. Sharpie, please?" I asked behind me with my hand extended as Alison passed it my way. "So, now with my right hand, I'm going to keep track of the positioning while tracing the outline shape very carefully with my left. Carter, could you bring the light kind of parallel to my hand, but a little elevated from there?"

"Yeah, sure." He adjusted slowly, attempting to block the light directly from Jacob's eyes, "Do we all still think it was the best move to not tell him about this right away?"

"He's made it 6 months, Carter. He can make it another day or so." Alison mumbled.

"The way I see it, if the needles and everything freak him out, he doesn't need to know until right before going in. He was already terrified when we came into the waiting room to tell him we needed to come back tomorrow."

Alison reached to brush some hair falling into my eyes as she spoke, "He looked up at you with the saddest eyes as you told him, Emmy. I just want him to be healthy."

"We all do, Al." Carter looked over his shoulder, before facing me again.

"There we go. Can I get the ruler, please?" Alison passed it over my shoulder as I measured the length, width, and diameter of the tumor, calling out the measurements for Alison to jot down. "Okay, when you're done with that, if you could reach forward to place the ruler on his back so I can take the photo exactly 12" from his body."

"What does that do?" Carter asked.

"Well, if we're going to appropriately track these between his appointments so that J doesn't have to go in for a biopsy every 6 weeks, then we have to do the same thing every time. Control every variable. If we're actually going to see if to the naked eye the tumors are growing, we have to take these photos from the same distance each time. Using a standard ruler just helps us not fuck that up."

He cleared his throat, "Right, right. Medical professional versus a common citizen. I forget sometimes."

"I'm just so well-adjusted to everyday society, right babe?"

Alison laughed, "I wouldn't quite say that."

"Sorry for the joke. Photo is done." I passed the sharpie held between my fingers back to Alison. "Now the same thing but for the neck." I gulped, worrying about what I would find, as Alison noted that it was partially visible. As I lifted his hair, I could immediately spot it, a knot about the size of a gumball. "So they told you to not worry about this?" Alison nodded. "Alright. To compare, from sight alone this is a T2 tumor ranging in size between 2 to 5 centimeters. My best guess, without measuring, is about 2.8 centimeters or about an inch. That's close to the size of the two cancerous tumors found in his brain at age 3, but this one is next to his brain stem."