Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Finn
The three of us remain seated in the office of my father’s oncologist waiting for her to join us. He had his scans several days ago, he’s been poked and prodded, and now here we are.
All three sitting side by side, each lost in our own thoughts.
I’m focusing on Sophie’s words, doing everything I can to channel the positive thinking she has been carrying for days.
I wish I could be like that. I wish I could think of the good, but with the year we’ve had, I’m terrified to let go of the negative thoughts. Like letting go of them will only set me up for failure. Almost like allowing myself to accept a good outcome is only making me a target for something bad.
It is crazy I know, but it doesn’t change the scary thoughts having an ongoing war in my head.
“Good afternoon.” My body lurches in surprise to the sound of the doctor’s voice as she enters the room. “I am so sorry to keep you all waiting.”
“It okay,” my father tells her as she rounds her desk and sits down, pulling out her iPad.
Tapping away on the screen she lifts her gaze to meet my father and holds his stare. My stomach grows tight, my hands shake and I fist them at my sides, trying to stay calm.
“How are you feeling, William?” she asks him with complete and total seriousness.
“I’m doing all right,” he assures her but I can sense he is growing impatient.
Frankly so am I. It feels like a lifetime, though I know it’s been only months of this battle.
The world seems to go on, yet ours feels like it stopped.
Here we are again sitting in a room as if we are frozen in time, hanging on a ledge, waiting to be rescued or to fall.
“These are your scans when we started this journey.” She turns the iPad around and it can’t be mistaken that there is a growth.
“Unfortunately due to the positioning of the mass, surgery was not an option,” the doctor continues and I close my eyes, willing her to just tell us what we so desperately needed to know.
“And these are your scans now.”
I open my eyes just as she flips the screen and again we all stare. Unsure of what we are seeing, what I do know is the images appear to be significantly different. What was a blurred spot in the center is now much smaller, and the dark areas seem more widespread.
“What are you saying?” I ask, suddenly feeling as though I’ve been kicked in the stomach, the uncomfortable pain there is making it hard to breathe evenly.
“What I’m saying is that the treatment worked.”
My mother’s cry escapes her and she quickly muffles the sound. Like she’d been holding in her pain for months and everything came rushing out of her in one big swoosh. An uncontrollable relief like she can finally breathe again.
“Of course we will need to monitor and repeat scans every few months. Continue on with your daily medication. But at this point I believe the treatment is working, has worked.” She smiles and looks at each of us.
I watch my father register her words. He holds her stare, gives her a gentle nod, once, twice and then his throat bobs as he swallows. He nods again, just before he bows his head.
I didn’t think I could break any more than I already had, but seeing my father cry proved me wrong.
He wasn’t sad, he wasn’t hurting, he was letting go.
He was accepting that all this time, holding it all in, doing everything he could to remain strong for his family, paid off.
He could now cry, knowing that he has so many more tomorrows ahead of him.
“This is great news,” the doctor adds with a bright smile.
“In this job, I don’t get to share great news often.
I’m forced to give the worst possible outcomes to people on a daily basis.
I sit here with families and I am the one that gets to tell them they may not have another week with their loved ones, or worse.
So this, I cherish these moments, because unfortunately we don’t get enough of them. ”
“Thank you,” I tell her, staring back at her through the tears that pool in my eyes.
“I’d like you to talk to the girls up front and they will line up your next series of scans and bloodwork.
I want to see you back in three months, but for now, I want you all to celebrate.
I want you to live your lives and love your family.
Because times like this, what you’ve gone through, it reminds us of what’s important.
People tend to forget those things. Life grabs hold of us and tosses us around, we get wrapped up in the world, what’s going on, what we can’t change. We lose track of the little things.”
“We do.” My father finally lifts his head and I swallow past my own emotions when I see his red-rimmed eyes and his tearstained cheeks.
We spend a few more minutes talking with the doctor, but as we walk out my father is laughing and my mother and him are holding hands.
I don’t know if I’m imagining things, but I swear the two of them seemed to have leaped back in time twenty years. They both seem so vibrant and full of life.
And I can’t stop watching them.
I feel like I’m floating myself and as we make it to our cars and I climb into mine, there is one person I want to hear on the opposite end of my phone.
Dialing her number she answers on the second ring and I can tell she is hanging on the edge of her seat.
“Where are you?”
“At home,” she says in a rush. “I just got here.”
“I’m on my way.” I end the call. I need to see her. I need to be holding her when I finally let it all go.