Shoulders

Chapter Fourteen- choices

Joel's POV
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited that Moriah's pregnant, and with twins! But, I feel like I can't truly be excited about it, since we could lose our daughter to this brain tumor that she has. She told me her options, and I don't really like any of them. I wish that she could just have one surgery, and the tumor be gone, but I guess that it's just not going to work like that for us. Moriah wasn't feeling good, (morning sickness) so I took Amber to her appointment where she needed to give Dr. Watson her decision on the treatment, so we were both nervous. We'd spent the last week talking and praying about it, but ultimately, we'd left it up to Amber. We met Dr. Watson in her office, and she shuffled through a couple papers.

"Alright, Amber, I take to you've made your decision?" She nodded, taking a deep breath.
"Yes. I want to go with the surgery. I don't want to just give up, and I don't want to spend the last of my life in the hospital. I also want to keep doing music with my family, if that's possible." She smiled at Amber.
"I think we can work something out. Just to let you know, part of the tumor is in an area that will be very difficult to get it out. So, since you're at a point where we can remove eighty percent of the tumor easily, could we go ahead and do the first surgery in two days?" I answered that.
"I'm okay with that, but I would like to ask my wife, and see what she has to say." She nodded, writing something down on a sheet of paper.
"Alright, here's my number, call me when you have an answer. Any more questions?" We both shook our heads. She stood, shaking our hands.
"Sorry to kick you out so soon, but I'm kind of busy today. Thank you for coming." We headed out, and fifteen minutes, we were back home, and Moriah was on the couch, reading Frank Peretti's The Oath. She loves that book. She looked up when she saw us, closing the book.

"So, what's happening, and when?" I dropped into a chair, and Amber went to go get a snack.
"Surgery. She wants to do the first surgery in two days, and I told her I'd ask you about that possibility. She wants to do it so soon, because she can get rid of most of it fairly easily." She drew a shaky breath, nodding.
"Okay. Is she still going to be able to perform with us?" I chuckled.
"She said they'll figure something out so that Amber can still go with us." Amber's cell phone rang, and I tossed it to her, and she answered.
"Hello? Hey, how are you? Ehh, okay...not really great right now." She pointed upstairs, which meant she was going to her room, and I nodded, and she hurried up the stairs. I was still struggling with the fact that she had cancer. And something so deadly and painful, at that! I thought about the song that Luke had written when he was sick, Without You. I shot up, headed for the phone. We still hadn't told Luke and Courtney what was going on, but I had an idea for the Priceless tour coming up in four months.

"Joel? What's going on? You sound a little upset. Everything okay?" I sighed. This was going to be harder than I thought.
"We found out why Amber's been getting headaches like she has. Apparently, you haven't been on Twitter lately. Amber has a tumor in her brain, and getting all of it out is going to be difficult." I heard an audible gasp from him, and his voice cracked when he responded.
"Wow. I'm sor- sorry. Is there anything they can do to get all of it out safely?" I tried to keep myself from crying.
"No, and that's why I called. Could Amber and I do Without You during the tour, assuming all goes well?"
"Yeah, gladly. Maybe at a couple places Moriah could do it with her too?"
"Maybe. We'll see how things turn out. She's pregnant, by the way." He chuckled.
"Well, congrats. Sorry, it's just more of a bittersweet moment, since we just found out about Amber. Hey, gotta go. See you three at the meeting tomorrow?"
"Yeah. Bye."
"Bye." Moriah was upstairs with Amber, and I sat down on the couch. How were we going to do this? Our daughter had a life-threatening condition, and we had just found out we were going to have twins! I knew from the start, we were not ever going to give Amber up, at least, not willingly, unless God called her home, which was a possibility. I started to cry, which was very unusual for me. I didn't want to lose my daughter, my princess. I just didn't want to live without her.