Why Don't We Sickfics

Cancer, Pt. 2

This is part 2 ❤ Read part 1 first to get oriented with the story!

"Mr. Frantzich? The doctor will see you now."

Jonah took a shaky breath and got to his feet, wiping away his tears. His mother followed, never letting her arm leave his waist.

The doctor welcomed them into the room, where another doctor was waiting. "Good afternoon, Jonah. I assume this is Ms. Frantzich?"

Jonah's mother nodded wordlessly.

"So, as I'm sure you've heard by now, you have leukemia. It's in a very advanced stage, stage 3. At this point, the number of treatments available to you are limited. We brought in the oncologist to talk to you."

Jonah nodded, grabbing his mother's hand. She squeezed it gently.

The oncologist nodded, pulling out a pamphlet. "The first option we can try is chemotherapy. This is the one I recommend the most. I know it sounds scary, but it's the major form of treatment and the one that we know best. All it would be is a drug treatment where we use chemicals to kill the leukemia cells in your body."

Jonah felt a tear slide down his face. It's so hard to believe this is actually happening.

"We have biological therapy, which uses treatments to try to make your immune system attack the leukemia cells by itself. This is usually effective only in the earlier stages of leukemia, so for that reason, I wouldn't recommend it."

I'm in bad condition, aren't I.

"Radiation therapy is another option, where we actually use beams of high energy to try to stop the growth of the leukemia cells. We would probably have to do this all over your body."

I'm so scared of this. I don't want this. This can't be happening.

"The last option we can try is a stem cell transplant. This would be a procedure to replace your diseased bone marrow with healthy bone marrow. However, you would have to use it conjunctly with another form of treatment to get the cancer cells out of your blood. So you would probably also get chemotherapy or radiation therapy. You may receive stem cells from a donor, or in some cases you may be able to use your own stem cells. A stem cell transplant is very similar to a bone marrow transplant."

Jonah nodded quietly.

"And if you don't want treatment, that's okay as well. You can go back home, you can spend time with your friends and family, and you won't have to go through any treatment. But your condition will only get worse. To be honest, at this stage, if you don't get treatment, you have less than 18 months left."

Jonah's mother squeezed his hand.

The oncologist sighed. "I know this is a very difficult decision. You can feel free to go home and talk to your family about this some more. However, we would like to sign you up for treatment effective immediately, so the sooner you make a decision the better. I'll give you a moment to talk, maybe call your family, whatever you need. I'll be back in about fifteen minutes, if you have a decision by then, great. If not, please call me as soon as you figure it out."

The two doctors left the room.

Jonah turned to face his mother and felt his eyes well up with tears.

A heartbroken attempt at a smile came to her face. "Do you know what you want to do?"

Jonah felt like he was going to cry, like he was going to internally combust. All he wanted to do was scream out at the offending world that he wasn't ready for this, that he didn't know what he wanted to so, that he was too young to make such a huge decision.