Diagnosis and Decisions
“Bri, what the heck took so long?” Nick asked as his best friend entered the hotel
room they shared.
Trying to make limited eye contact, Brian shrugged his shoulders. “You know
how doctor’s offices can be, he just was booked up and it took him longer to get
to me.”
“Oh, I see,” Nick replied as he watched Brian take his jacket off and throw it
across the bed. “They did a blood test on you?”
Brian whirled around, mouth hanging open. “How...how do you know about
that?”
“Calm down! Brian, there’s a cotton ball on your arm, geesh, if I didn’t know any
better, I’d think you were hiding something from me by the way you’re acting.”
Brian laughed nervously as he ran his palm over the band-aid in the crook of his
left arm. “Um, I’m gonna go take a shower.”
Nick strode across the room and threw himself onto a bed, turning on the
playstation.
Grabbing a change of clothes from the suitcase, Brian walked into the bathroom
and quietly closed the door behind him. He walked over to the tub and turned
the shower on full blast with the hottest water he knew his body could withstand.
As the steam quickly clouded the mirror over, he quickly undressed and stepped
into the flow of hot water.
Letting the water splash onto his face, Brian stood there, letting the conversation
with the doctor earlier play through his thoughts again:
“Brian, the tests indicate two things going on with you. One we can fix because I
doubt it’s malignant but the other is a little trickier to deal with. You have a small
tumor in your brain, it’s benign but it’s centered in the temporal lobe of your brain
and that’s why you’ve been having the problems you’ve described. We can
surgically remove it or if you wish we can do two weeks worth of radiation that
way there would be no risk of any alterations during surgery, there’s always the
risk of permanent damage to your personality and to your memory. The second
finding, which is going to be harder to deal with is you have Acute Myelogenic
Leukemia.”
The words kept echoing in his mind over and over.
Acute Myelogenic Leukemia.
It was like a slap in his face, this was something that was out of his hands, he
had no control over what this was going to do with him.
“Is it fatal?” Brian barely whispered.
“I’ll be honest with you Brian. Yes, this form of cancer can and is usually fatal,
but and I stress this, there have been several cases of remission which is
achieved by chemotherapy and blood transfusions.”
Dr. Allen looked at his patient, his face had turned ashen, a vacant stare in his
eyes. “Brian?”
Brian snapped out of his trance. “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? You should have someone come and ride back to the hotel with
you, I don’t think you should be alone right now.”
“I said I’m okay,” Brian replied quietly.
Dr. Allen handed over some brochures to Brian. “Here are some papers I need
you to look over that fully describes what’s going on with you and the treatment
options. We can set up your appointments right at UK Cancer Center in
Lexington, as soon as possible.”
Brian’s head shot up from the brochures. “No, I need to do this on the road, is
that possible?”
“It’s difficult, Brian, you need to be consistant with the therapies.”
“I can do this, I need you to help me on this. I want everything to remain normal,”
Brian begged.
“If you give me your schedule, I can have my nurse arrange for treatments at
every stop, but mind you, you have to have blood draws done every week as
well as the chemo every two weeks, we can do a port, no one will notice that and
you can go to a hospital and they can hook your chemo up and you can go on
your way and have it disconnected when it’s finished.”
“I will do what I have to do, but no one is to know about any of this,” Brian
requested.
“You know you have patient confidentality Brian, always. I have one more thing
to ask you though,” Dr. Allen stated as he pulled out a sheet of paper from
Brian’s chart. “I need you to designate a guardian for your care in case it gets
worse.”
“Worse? Like in dying?” Brian asked quietly.
“Dying or loss of realities, Brian this is very serious and you need to take care if
this now, get all your ducks in a row, I guess would be the best way of putting
this. Bring it with you when you start your chemo tomorrow morning, that is if you
plan on fighting this. I’ll schedule surgery in the morning for the port and you
need to be NPO after midnight and you need to bring someone with you to take
you back after surgery.”
“I’ll bring it back with me tomorrow,” Brian numbly took the papers.
Nick’s pounding on the door snapped Brian from his thoughts.
“God Bri, are you gonna be in there forever? I need to go to the bathroom!” Nick
moaned on the other side of the door.
“Go use someone elses,” Brian hollered from the shower.
“They wouldn’t really appreciate it, if you know what I mean,” Nick replied.
Brian smirked at the thought. “Then go down to AJ’s room.”
“Okay, okay, but I’m telling them it was your idea when I leave there,” Nick
chuckled.
Nick had a talent for making Brian smile in the seriousness of any given
situation. He made his mind up right then. Nick would be his guardian, he would
be able to make the right choices and think with his mind over his heart.
