Crossroads of Life

Chapter 15

Bailey’s POV:

About two months ago, I was told I had a rare form of pancreatic cancer. I had six months to live. At the most. There was a treatment, but I didn’t want it. I refused.

I still remember sitting in the cold waiting room, running my nervous hands over the metal arms of the chair. I hated doctors, hated hospitals.. hated anything to do with them in general. They gave me the creeps. They weren’t natural. Everything was too clean, too polished, too rehearsed.

The doctor came in and broke the news to me gently. He put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, but I didn’t want to cry. I was in shock. I felt perfectly fine, I didn’t feel sick at all. ‘You won’t feel the pain until you’re in the late stages,’ the nurse told me.

In other words, I wasn’t going to start to hurt until I was really dying, until I could no longer move, until I was bedridden and no longer the same. I wasn’t supposed to hurt until I was hooked up to a heart monitor, wasn’t supposed to feel anything until I was just weeks from slipping away into an eternal nothingness.

But that’s not the case. I know that now. The pain began the second I was informed of my illness. It filled me like water fills a sponge, absorbing into my every last ounce of life. It weighed on me, drowning me in sorrow that I couldn’t show.

I was in denial, shock, all of the normal things I guess. They told me there was a potential cure, but it involved major surgery. And even after that, I wouldn’t be cancer free; I would most likely need a few organ transplants from a donor.

“What are my odds of surviving the first surgery?” I asked the doctor, staring at him in his disgustingly white coat.

“About 60%.. in your case,” he answered truthfully.

“And what are the odds that I’d be cancer free after that?”

“Not high. Around 20 to 30%.” He was beginning to grow uncomfortable, rubbing his cold hands together and looking down at his clipboard.

“And you said that if I survive the first surgery, I would need an organ transplant?” I asked, focusing on the facts.

“Yes, it is very probable. We would need to find a willing donor with a genetic match,” he said matter-of-factly.

“The donor.. they’d be a family member? Right?” I asked, not liking where this was going. I could feel the fear building up inside me, blooming like a flower.

“It’s fairly certain that someone you are related to is a match,” he told me, staring at me with icy grey eyes, wrinkles forming on his young face. I swallowed hard at this information, knowing what the doctor was suggesting.

“Organ donations.. are uhm.. they painful?” I asked sheepishly.

“It depends on the procedure, but.. most transplants are major operations and any surgery comes with some sort of pain.”

I’m sure this wasn’t his favourite part of the job. “But you’re a strong girl. I can tell,” the doctor said. I wasn’t sure if he was convincing me or himself. ‘It’s not me I’m worried about’, I thought trying to control my shaking body.

“You can die from a transplant, no?”

“It has happened,” he sighed, clearly getting frustrated by my questions. “The odds of that aren’t as high though.” I drew in a shaky breath, taking in this new information.

“What if I survive everything, the surgery, the transplants, everything. What then? What are my chances of living then?”

“Well after that you’ll hopefully be cancer free.”