Hawk
The ride over here from the lab was one full of silence. Bianca took her own car because they have places to go after the appointment and I felt that they wanted to do it on their own. I didn’t know what to say to Tessa to reassure her that everything is going to be okay. I’m not going to lie–I’m freaking out. Now, sitting in the waiting room, it isn’t any better. The waiting room is full of people, some look sick while other seems perfectly fine. My mind wonders if the ones who look well are, in fact, that well. Or maybe their disease hasn’t taken hold of them like it has the others.
I glance towards Tessa who’s sitting next to me. Her head is turned slightly, and she’s staring out the window on the other side of the room. I give her hand a squeeze trying to let her know that she’s not alone, but she doesn’t respond as she continues to gaze out the window. I feel her fight fading, and it scares the shit out of me because the struggle she’s bound to face hasn’t even started.
I lean into her and rest my chin on her shoulder. “Hey.” She turns her head and gives me a side eye.
“I’m sorry.” She nods.
“I love you.” It’s the first time I’ve told her since that night in her apartment a few months ago, and when she doesn’t say anything back, my heart slightly breaks.
“Tessa?”
We both startle when we hear her name being called. A man is standing with a medical chart in his hands is at the door that leads back to the exam rooms. I stand first, pulling her up next to me. When I look towards Bianca, she continues to sit, telling me that she isn’t going to come back with us.
Once we’re ushered into his office, we both take a seat on a cream-colored couch. I take her hand in mine and rest them both on my thigh. He sits next to us and not behind his desk.
“I want to go over your history.” He looks at me. “I noticed on your chart that you aren’t married.”
“That’s correct,” Tessa replies.
“I do see that Mr. Gentry is your emergency contact, but since you aren’t married, and he isn’t family, by law, I have to ask if I have your permission to discuss your condition in front of Mr. Gentry.”
“That’s fine.”
“All right.” He crosses his legs and opens the chart. “It seems that you had childhood leukemia a birth.”
“That’s correct. I was born with it.”
He nods. “Obviously, you went into remission, but since you were so young, I’m sure you’re unaware of what procedure was used to make that happen?”
“I don’t know. My parents never really discussed it when I was younger, and I have since lost touch with them.”
“With such short notice, I haven’t had adequate time to research, and I requested the file first thing this morning, but the hospital’s database shows they don’t have a chart on file. I was hoping you’d be able to shed some light on your treatment, but I guess that isn’t the case.”
“How can they not have it?”
“It was almost thirty years ago, long before charts went digital, so it’s not an uncommon occurrence, just inconvenient.” He glimpses at us before he goes back to the file. “While you were admitted into the hospital this last time, they ran a series of blood tests. They showed at the time you had too many white blood cells and not enough red. An elevated white blood cell count is always a sign that something isn’t right in the body—infection possibly. Your tests showed decreases platelets and some blast cells. Because of the results, they performed a bone marrow test, aspirated a portion of your marrow, and ran a test looking for leukemia cells. That is how your diagnosis was determined.”
He puts the chart down. “What they didn’t do while you were admitted was run any imaging tests and a spinal tap. We’ll need to run those both so we can determine if the cancer has spread outside the marrow. Typically, it will travel to the brain and spinal cord. Once we do those tests, we’ll be able to see where we stand on the fight and what our best game plan is.”
“When does all that happen?” I ask.
“Tomorrow for both. To be honest, because this is a reoccurrence, I feel that we need to move aggressively. Our only saving grace at this point in time is if it’s still isolated to the marrow and hasn’t traveled anywhere else. Tessa, do you have any questions for me?”
“Um,” she clears her throat. Pulling her hand from mine, she wipes them on the front of her jeans. “As of right now, there’s no way of telling me of the likely hood of survival?”
“Correct. We haven’t been able to stage or determine how far along the cancer is. It’s not just the point of saying yes, you have cancer. We have to take other things into consideration, like what type, if this is considered a secondary one, how long since the diagnosis. Once we take everything into factor, then we’ll be able to determine what we do next.”
“All right. So tomorrow then.”
“Yes. You’ll need to check in at the hospital, and I’ll see you then.”
When he gets up, I follow suit. I shake his hand and watch as Tessa does the same. Once we make it to the waiting room, Bianca stands and approaches us, hugging Tessa and whispering words of love the only way Bianca knows how.