Read The Game That Breaks Us Online
Authors: Micalea Smeltzer
Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary, #New Adult & College, #Sports
The Game That Breaks Us (41 page)
Literally.
I’d passed out at work, and woken up inside a hospital room; a hospital room that smelled like death, and only a few bitchy nurses to keep me company.
I turned over in the uncomfortable bed so that I could face the window. The evening light from the sun was setting and the dark clouds were taking over. No matter how dreary it looked outside I still would’ve rather been out there. I couldn’t rest. The pain in my stomach was keeping me doubled over, and any more encounters with these dingbat nurses and I’d need a sedative.
There was a light tap on the door, but I didn’t bother turning over. I stared off, lost in my own thoughts.
“Ms. Holt.”
An elder man came into view from the edge of my bed. He was wearing a dress shirt and tie and had long white hair that touched his collar. His eyebrows were raised in question as if he needed me to verify my name. It was obviously written on the chart he was holding in his hands.
Giving him a knowing look, I sighed. Hospitals brought out the worst in me. I was an evil wench.
The man whom I assumed was the doctor scooted the chair over next to my bed, and sat down.
“I’m Doctor Lincoln,” he proceeded. “I’ve come to talk to you about your test results. Doctor Andrews ordered a second more detailed CT scan because of your inconclusive results from the first test. I can only assume he wanted to be certain of your diagnosis.” There was a slight clearing of his throat before he continued. “You have no next of kin listed on your admittance form. Is that correct?”
I nodded, shifting upward in my seat. Sitting too long in any direction usually caused me discomfort.
“You know what’s wrong with me?” I asked.
It was his turn to nod, and I could see the strain in his forehead. It was bad news, also known as the story of my life.
I swallowed the golf ball size lump in my throat and waited for the worst.
“Pancreatic Cancer.”
There may have been other words in his explanation but pancreatic cancer was all I’d heard. The “C” word had haunted me forever. It was the disease that took my Mother, and also my aunt.
Now me.
If there were ever a time for me to panic, it was at that very moment. Only I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything. There was no right thing that would take away the very wrong thing that was happening. The pit of my stomach felt like razor blades as it twisted up in knots.
“I’m very sorry.” His calloused fingers touched my shoulder and my eyes flicked toward his face. “We should run a few more tests and get you started on an aggressive treatment plan. There is a great cancer center off the west exit of the hospital,” He explained.
“I know the place.” My voice sounded nothing like my own. It was laced with sorrow and hurt. I clenched my jaw and wiped the layer of sweat that gathered at the base of my neck.
The Doctor glanced over his paperwork, scratching his head as if he’d written a math problem he couldn’t figure out. He studied it, flipping the pages up and down.
I adjusted myself in the bed and straightened the wires that were attached to my body in some way, shape or form. The room had grown ten times hotter, and my mind flooded with memories of the many times I’d taken my mom into that cancer center. She had the cancer in her bladder, and stomach, and it didn’t take long for it to take over her body and run through her as rapid as a wildfire. She couldn’t beat it, and I knew I couldn’t either. I was no idiot. Pancreatic cancer was as good as a death sentence.
Twenty years old.
That’s all I was.
“This is what we will do Ms. Holt,” the doctor stood up from his chair and the sound of his dress shoes made clanking noises as he paced the floor.
“Wait.” I hit the arrow up button on the side of the bed and it let out a loud motorized noise as the head of my bed began to rise up. “No plans.” I shook my head. “I don’t want any treatment, or cancer center. I don’t want to be sick from that stuff like my Mom was. I just want to go home with my cat.”
“But Miss Holt,” he interjected, but I waved my hand for him to stop.
“I know about this cancer Doctor. I know that I won’t survive.” I spoke, and it pained me to say the words. I’d gone through this twice now with family and I didn’t have the strength left to fight for myself. It was a fight that I wouldn’t win anyway.
He let my chart hang loosely at his side as he stared at me with a look that was anything but understanding. “The treatment could add months to your life.”
“Yeah,” I huffed. “Months of me trying to find a way back and forth to a treatment that’s going to make me sick and tired. I don’t have anyone else in my life, and I don’t want to spend what little time I have left in that building where I watched my Mom die.”
The tears welled up in my eyes, but I held them off.
He glanced at my chart again and sighed before running his hand roughly down the side of his face. “Without treatment it’s likely that it will progress quickly inside you.”
“How long?” I asked. I wanted to know just how long I had before I’d die.
“I can’t say for certain, but I’d say you won’t see your next birthday.” He choked up.
I closed my eyes to keep from crying. My birthday was only three months away; my twenty-first birthday.
He thought I wouldn’t live to see my twenty-first birthday, and he was probably right.
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
A tear fell freely down my cheek, and I nodded. “I’m sure. I would like it if you could give me something for the pain while I’m home, something good.” I smiled.
He gave me a half-hearted smile. “Okay,” he replied. “I would offer you the diet plan we have that is very helpful for cancer patients, but I think if I were you I’d eat what you love.”
I smiled back at him. “I plan to. Can I go home now?”
“I’ll sign the papers, and the nurse will be in to discharge you. I wish you well Tori, and if you change your mind I’ll set up a rapid fire plan for you.”
“Thank you.”
He hung his head as he left me in solitary confinement. The moment the door closed behind him I broke. I lost it completely.
My heart ached, and felt heavy inside my chest as I cried. I was twenty years old, with no family, no friends, and a burden that I’d have to carry all by myself.
I was going to die.
I sobbed into my hands and rocked back and forth in my bed. I was so afraid.
So afraid…
I didn’t want to die alone.
I couldn’t die alone.
I couldn’t.
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