The Beginning of the End Of My Life

Chapter 5

Just like that.

My mom put her hands over her mouth, tears streaming down her face, silently, over her fingers. I was in shock. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think. My head was spinning, and I felt like I was going to throw up. “What-” I cleared my throat. “What can we do?”

Dr. Anderson seemed encouraged that I was talking. “Well, you aren't showing many physical signs of the cancer, which is unusual.” Ugh, that word. I wish he would stop saying it. “We'll have to do a bone marrow biopsy, just to make determine what kind of leukemia you have and make sure we're right. After that, we'd have to do either chemotherapy or radiation therapy, or more likely a combination of the two.”

“There are different kinds of leukemia?”

“Well, yes. Most likely you have Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, or ALL for short. Three out of four childhood leukemia cancers are ALL.”

Then he started talking about exactly how the leukemia would affect my body and how it worked its way through my bloodstream and all kind of other medical things that I couldn't follow, and didn't really want to. I didn't care how this cancer worked, I just wanted it out of me.

Dr. Anderson stopped talking for a moment to reach behind him for a folder that he'd carried into the room and handed it to me. “There's some information in here about the reality of having leukemia and more about the treatments you'll be offered. I recommend getting treatment from Palmetto Health Children's Hospital. They're very good at treating children and teens with cancer, better than we would be.” He pointed at the folder. “There's contact information in there, too, both for them and for me. You should set up the biopsy for as soon as possible, so that treatment can begin accordingly. If you have any questions, just call. We're here to help you.” He stood up and made his way toward the door. He said quietly, “take as much time as you need. I'm truly sorry that I had to tell you this.” Then he was gone.

Mom had since stopped crying and had dried her face with the tissues that were always in her purse. She took the folder that was in my clenched hands and started flipping through it, talking aloud to herself. “I think insurance will cover this . . . Oh my word, I can't believe this is happening . . .” She gasped. “How are we going to tell Grandma?”

“No! Don't!” I exploded at her. “We can't!”

“Why not? We can't keep this hidden from everyone we know, especially not after-” She paused. “Not after chemo . . .”

I dry heaved a little at that. I couldn't do chemo; I'd lose my hair! “Well then we tell them after chemo. But I can't – I don't want people to treat me differently because I'm sick.”

Mom looked really upset. “Well, I suppose it's technically your choice. But we're telling Dad.”

“Not Alex – I can't do that to him. He's too innocent. It would break him.”

“Well, what will we tell him when you're gone all the time at the hospital?”

“Tell him there's something wrong with my ankle. That's what I'll tell everybody at school.”

“All right. I don't agree, but it's your diagnosis.” She was silent for a minute. “We should go.”

So we got up and made our way through the hallways, out the door and to the car. The ride home was just as quiet as our ride to the hospital, but this silence was full of sorrow. When we pulled into the driveway, I took a deep breath and steeled myself to see Alex. I got out of the car and walked inside. He was standing in front of me almost immediately, with a worried look on his face. “Hey Lizzy, is everything okay? You're alright, aren't you?”

His concern made me want to cry. But I couldn't tell him, because he'd tell his friends and then everything would get out. I didn't want that, so I just told him, “yeah, I'm alright. They just wanted to talk about physical therapy for my ankle.”

He grinned, happy that nothing was wrong, and walked off. I felt horrible for lying to him, but I didn't have a choice. Mom walked up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder. She leaned her head in my mine, and whispered, “it'll be alright. I promise.” She hugged me from behind, around my waist (and the crutches), and then walked into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the entryway with the folder and my thoughts. I had to get upstairs to my room before they got the best of me.

Stairs were nearly impossible on crutches. After a few steps, I gave up and crawled up the stairs, pushing the crutches up every few steps. But when I got to the top, I realized that standing would be more difficult that I'd thought. So, I continued crawling to my room and ended up pulling myself up onto my bed and leaned against the headboard, my legs across the unmade sheets. I pulled out the folder and started rifling through the papers, looking for something I might recognize from biology classes. I mostly got out of it that there was something wrong with my blood – that there were too many immature white blood cells pumping through my body – and that I'd probably get chemo treatments through a catheter. But first, there was that darn bone marrow biopsy. I started to read about that, but got a little too much freaked out when it started sounding like they'd need to get into my hip bones to see exactly what was going on inside my bone marrow. I put the paper down, shifted down my pillow and tried to fall asleep.

A while later, I heard a knock at my door, jarring me out of my nap. I looked over, and Mom was peeking her head through the door. “Honey? It's dinnertime. Are you hungry?” I shook my head no. I wasn't in the mood for food. She walked away, and I fell asleep again.

I was woken up again, when it was darker out, by someone opening my door, and then Dad walked in. His face looked worried, and it only took me a second of looking at him to burst into tears. He walked over and sat down next to me. I buried my face into his chest, and he wrapped his arms around me and rubbed my back. “Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry.”

“No – no, it's not your fault. I'm just – it's just –” I cried even harder.

“Shh, it's okay. I promise we'll do everything to get you healthy again, and then this will just be a thing of the past. We just have to be strong.” I nodded. We sat there for a while, me soaking through Dad's shirt with all of my tears and sniffling. I quieted after a while, and then he got up and left.

I was mopping up my face with the tissues I kept by my bed when Mom came in, looking nervous. “I set up the appointment for the bone marrow biopsy – it's tomorrow, at the children's hospital.” I nodded. I was nodding a lot lately; I guess I wasn't up for talking much. She continued, “we'll have to go in early, because there's a few forms we have to fill out, and you can't eat anything after midnight, so if you're hungry, you should eat now.” I looked at the clock – 10:30. I'd been in my room for a long time. Just then, my stomach rumbled. “I guess I am kind of hungry,” I said.

“Do you want anything special?”

“No, leftovers of what you had is fine.”

“Okay. I'll bring it up in a minute.” Mom left my room. She'd looked almost embarrassed, as if she felt bad that she couldn't do anything else for me but heat up my dinner. I pulled out the papers Dr. Anderson had given me again and went to the section about the biopsy. I didn't make it much farther than the last time I'd looked at it. The “large needle inserted through the outside surface of a bone and into the middle of the bone” made me want to panic, so I stopped there. I put the paper down, and just then Mom came in, with a plate full of spaghetti and meatballs and a huge piece of garlic bread. She placed it on my lap, kissed the top of my head, and walked out.

Spaghetti was one of my favorite foods, but I just didn't have an appetite after reading about what the doctors would be doing to me tomorrow. I turned on my iPod and set some music going and picked through my plate. I didn't make it very far before I put it on my bedside table and fell asleep for the night.