A Cancer Story

Chapter 2

The next day:

You were awoken by your phone ringing and you instantly were awake.  The number was not registered in your phone so you quickly sat up and answered the phone.

“Hello..?” you said half groggily

“yes this is Dr. Stevenson’s office calling about your test results.. Dr. Stephenson would like you to come in so he can discuss them with you.  Can you come in an hour?” the lady asked

You looked at the time.. “Oh yea.. yea sure.. ill be there.”

You quickly hopped out of bed and hurried to get ready.  Within half an hour you were ready to go and out the door to stop and grab a quick breakfast before heading over.  After stopping at the dunkin donuts drive through and getting an iced coffee and a breakfast sandwich, you hurried over to the doctor’s office, hoping that the news wasn’t going to be too bad.  Once arriving at the office you let the lady behind the desk know you were here and then took a seat in the waiting room.  After what seemed like hours but only was a couple minutes, Dr. Stevenson came out and asked you to follow him.  You followed nervously twirling the ends of your hair.

In the office:

Dr. Stevenson: “Please sit down.”

You did as you were told but didn’t have anything to say because of being nervous.  Everything was silent for a moment and then the doctor sighed and took his glasses off and set them on his desk.

Dr. Stevenson: “The reason I called you in here was to talk about your test results which came back this morning.” Pauses “There’s no real good way to put this but I’m afraid you have cancer.”

You looked at the doctor in shock and just plain dumb founded on what he just said.  You were not expecting to hear that at all.  You were always healthy and never sick.  Cancer.  The words hit you like a brick wall and you felt like crying but you held yourself together.  You did manage to ask a few questions

You: “what kind of cancer do I have and what can we do?” you asked

Dr. Stevenson: “well there’s actually two spots that we found so there are two different  types that you have” He said.  The news was almost too hard to bear and you began sobbing in his office.  He looked at you sympathetically and handed you some tissues.  After a moment you motioned him to continue.  “You have Osteosarcoma which is a bone cancer and you also have a brain tumor.  The brain tumor is in a spot where we can perform surgery to remove it but the cancer in your bones is in an inoperable spot and it is very aggressive.  We would like to perform surgery as soon as possible to remove the tumor in your brain and then start you on chemotherapy and radiation to try and remove the spots in your bones.  Could you possibly come back tomorrow at my office in the hospital and we will do a surgery to get your port in?”

You: you were so in shock you almost didn’t hear what he said.  All that kept going through your head was ‘cancer.. am I going to die?.. bone cancer?  severe? surgery? brain tumor?’  You didn’t realize you were speaking until you heard your own voice say, “yes.”

Dr. Stevenson: “Great.. i'll schedule it for 11 o'clock tomorrow and make sure not to eat anything 12 hours before.”

You nodded and stood up and looked at him with sad eyes trying to come up with something to say but what can you say to someone who just told you that you were dying?  As soon as you were in your car you completely broke down and slammed your fist on the steering wheel.  ‘Why did this have to happen to you?!’  You couldn’t understand why all of this was happening.  It felt like a dream.  In your anger you threw your phone in the back of the car and started up and left.  You drove to your favorite spot to walk by the woods.  And numbly walked into the woods and went to your favorite old fallen tree.  You sat there and just cried and screamed for hours.  You eventually must’ve fallen asleep because when you woke up, you realized it was late when you looked up and saw the sky was getting dark.  Heading back to your car you climbed in and checked yourself in the mirror.  You looked terrible, you tried to fix it but eventually gave up.