I’m curled up in a hospital bed in Sloane-Kettering hospital, frantically pressing the release button on the device that administers my pain medications, but nothing is happening. I know it’s too soon for another dose, but the drugs aren’t working anymore. It’s taking more and more of them to even make a dent in my pain. The doctors are absolutely baffled by my condition at this point, mostly because I was supposed to be dead six months ago. Yet, here I lay, hospital bills mounting, pain getting worse, and no closer to any answer than I was when this whole nightmare started.

Worst of all, I haven’t seen my daughter in six months. I have no idea how she is doing, if she is happy and healthy, whether Pierce is taking good care of her. I made Mr. Bailey promise to cease all contact with me after he handed Chloe over to Pierce, but now that I seem to be clinging to life in spite of every diagnosis, my dreams are plagued with thoughts of the little girl I gave away. What if I did it for no reason? What if I live to be a hundred, just miserable and in pain the whole time? Is that any kind of life for a little one anyway?

If I’m not thinking about Chloe, or how sick I am, I’m thinking about the loan sharks from whom I borrowed money to pay off the first round of bills. I put all my chips on being dead before I’d have to pay them back, and now…I’m still here. Not only do I owe some very violent men close to $75,000, but I’ve added over $100,000 to my mounting debt. So far, the hospital has been cutting me some slack because I paid off the initial bill — they certainly didn’t care where the money came from the first time. But I don’t think their generosity will last forever, and the longer I live like this, the more money I am going to owe. Being sick and terrified? That’s no way to get better. If getting better is even an option for me.

My day nurse, Alicia, comes into my room with a syringe and a bowl of broth. I feel my body go stiff at the thought of eating, but they keep trying to make me eat anyway, even though most of my nutrition comes in the form of IVs these days.

“Honey, you’re never going to force that machine to do anything it doesn’t want to. But I got permission from Doctor Gould to give you a little booster. She’s going to be down soon to talk with you. In the meantime, is there any chance today you can take a few spoonfuls of this broth? Even one?”

I shake my head and curl up into a tighter ball. “No, thank you. Just the medicine.”

Alicia sighs. We have the same conversation every day and I never change my answer, but it doesn’t stop her from asking. “All right, sweetheart. Here is your shot,” she says as she injects the drugs into the IV line. “Close your eyes until Doctor Gould gets here.”

It’s only seconds before a wave of dizziness washes over me, and I don’t care about my pain anymore. All I care about is sleeping. The drugs make it impossible for me to keep track of trivial things, like the time, or what day it is, so when I hear my name, I have no concept of how long I’ve actually been asleep. I open my eyes and see Doctor Melanie Gould sitting next to me on the bed. Her long red hair is swept up in a stylish braid, and her usually tired eyes seem to be alight with an excitement I’ve never seen in her before.

“Arie, I need you to wake up. I need you to confirm you’re with me. We need to have a talk.”

I shake my head a little, trying to wiggle loose the cobwebs of sleep. “Yes, I’m awake. What is it?”

“Arie…I have something very important to tell you. You don’t have pancreatic cancer.”

For a second, all of the blood in my body stops flowing. “I… what?”

“I’m going to be straight with you, Arie. If you had pancreatic cancer, you would have been dead by now. So, I’ve been running some tests and looking through all of your scans and charts. I believe you have something called intestinal ischemia, or more specifically, acute mesenteric artery ischemia. Basically, you have blood clots all through your intestines, causing blockages. It has all the same symptoms of pancreatic cancer, but it takes a lot longer to do you in. You had a mass in your pancreas, but once that was removed, that part of your illness was all resolved.”

I try to sit up, but the pain stops me, so I just prop myself on the pillow and reach out for Doctor Gould’s arm. “What does this mean? Am I still going to die? Is there a way to treat it?”

“We’re going to have to do surgery to confirm, and if I’m right, we’ll have to remove the clots, and possibly remove damaged sections of your intestine. You may have to be on medications to prevent infections, and future clots from forming again. But Arie… if this is the answer, then you won’t just live. You’re going to feel 99% better again in less than a month.”

She barely finishes her sentence before I burst into tears. I never imagined a future in which I’d be alive, let alone feel normal again. The concept is so overwhelming I can’t even process it. A flood of thoughts and emotions overtake me all at once, and then, two thoughts win out.

Oh god… the loan sharks.

Oh god… my Chloe.