I'm still into you. (Book 2)

Dire straits

This can’t be happening to me…I must be mistaken…

I waited the next day for Domingo to go to work, he had tried to convince me that he should stay off to look after me but I told him I was a doctor. If anyone was capable of looking after me and making sure that I was ok it was…well me. I watched from the bedroom as he reluctantly left the flat, then Lena popped her head into my bedroom to tell me that she was going to take Emily for a walk.

When she had left I climbed out of bed and grabbed my laptop, pulling up my doctor’s medical journal with every known disease I typed in my symptoms. A few options came up the first was glandular fever… ok that’s not too bad.

The second option made my heart sink, it was the disease that I had predicted non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I would need tests to confirm this but if I was right I had cancer… cancer when I have just had a little girl. Cancer when I have a husband who loves me and a family who treat me as if I am the most precious thing on earth.

Cancer…

I wrote a note for Lena to tell her I needed to go to the hospital for medicine, I told her not to worry that I would be back soon and I asked her not to call Domingo unnecessarily. I dressed quickly and grabbed my wallet, I didn’t have time for the tube so I hailed a cab and asked him to get me to Great Ormond Street as soon as possible.

When I was there I raced as quick as my weakened body would carry me to my supervisors office, when I arrived she wasn’t there. I cursed and wandered the halls asking people if they had seen the Dr, but they shook their heads.

I eventually found her in the canteen and she took one look at me and told me to follow her to her office. She sat me down and sat opposite behind her desk then she asked me what had happened, I spilled quickly my symptoms and I told her what it must mean.

She nodded her head but told me to try and remain calm, that we both knew a lot of the time it just turned out to be glandular fever. I shook my head but agreed to try and calm myself down as she suggested some rush tests to be done to make things clearer.

Usually tests like this took days if not weeks to come back but she told me that she would personally take them to the lab to get a rush put in on them. After she had taken all of the samples she needed she told me to go and get some sleep and come back tomorrow with Domingo.

I refused and when she told me it would be best to tell him I told her no. I wouldn’t worry him anymore than I had to, so I wouldn’t be telling him until I was one hundred percent certain that I might die from this. If it was curable he didn’t need to know because this would kill him too and I wasn’t prepared to do that to him.

I went home ignoring her pleas to think it over, that he deserved to know. I remembered to grab some painkillers before I left so that when I entered the house Lena wasn’t suspicious over anything. I climbed into bed and just lay there until I heard the door opening and Domingo greet Lena.

I turned over and pretended to be asleep, I couldn’t have slept even if I’d tried but I couldn’t face him right now. He could read me like a book and would know that I was keeping something from him so the easiest thing to do was to just feign sleep.

It was the longest night of my life. Domingo came to bed late and wrapped his body around mine but I couldn’t stop my pretence as he was up and down for Emily all night and each time I tried to get up he would wake up and stop me.

I lay there in silence each time pretending that I had fallen back to sleep and he would climb back in and wrap himself around me. I felt so awful and each time bad thoughts would fill my mind and refuse to leave, by four am I was in tears as I contemplated the fact that I could be leaving my husband and my beautiful daughter behind.

In the morning I once again watched as Domingo got ready for work and left with a kiss to mine and Emily’s foreheads. Once again Lena took Emily out for her daily walk and once again I left the house while there was no one else in to stop me.

Once sat in that office I began to grow nervous as I waited for the Dr to return with the results. When she came in I could already tell from her face that it was bad news and I put my head in my hands as I cried.

“I am so sorry Charlie, but we are going to beat this I won’t lose you and I know that you won’t give up for Domingo and Emily’s sake.” She soothed.

I couldn’t speak to her, I simply nodded my head and got up to leave. She asked me to stay until I had calmed down and offered to call Dom but I snapped at her and told her no. I wasn’t ready yet I needed to come to terms with this myself first and right now I needed to be alone.

I walked through the streets of London trying to get my head around what was happening. People looked at me strangely as the tears fell down my face with no sign of stopping anytime soon. I sat in the park on a bench thinking about my husband until it got dark, I really didn’t want to leave him alone.

I wasn’t ready to leave him yet, I wasn’t ready to give him up or let him move on from me. I was being selfish but I loved him so much and the thought of him moving on and raising our daughter with someone else was killing me. My heart was breaking and I didn’t know what to do, I needed to try and be positive so that I could get through this illness but right now that seemed impossible.

If I couldn’t pull myself together Dom was going to know what was wrong with me, I was going to have to come up with a reason for not being home anyway. I had lost track of time and it was getting dark around me so I wiped my eyes and made my way home to see my husband.

When I walked through the door I was pulled instantly into his arms and I could hear him saying thank god over and over again. I could also hear Emily crying in her bedroom so Dom must have been very worried if he had been neglecting our daughter.

I apologised to him and told him that I just needed some fresh air and lost track of time, I had forgotten my phone leaving it by the bed by accident. He kissed me roughly and pulled me back into his arms again, I detached myself telling him I was going to see to Emily.

He forced me into bed instead and went to see to her himself. Tears filled my eyes as the realisation that my daughter could no longer catch what I had sunk in. A common cold or Influenza that’s what they thought I had and god how I wished that was true now. If I started to pick her up and hold her again Domingo would know that it was something else because I was just too weak to pretend like nothing was wrong.

I also came to the conclusion that now I was feeling weak not only because of the illness but because of the fact that I may not make it through this. It was that reason that was keeping me in my bed right now not the illness, it was that reason that would keep me off work for the foreseeable future.

I needed to tell Domingo but I couldn’t hurt him anymore than I already was, the Dr had been right though he deserved to know. This wasn’t just about me anymore the decisions that were made from now on would affect my family too so it was time to think of a way to break the news.