I looked away, my eyes dancing over the room, desperate to find something that wasn’t a medical sketch or graphic image. I wanted trees and grass and sunlight. I needed to get out of this godforsaken place.
“We should discuss what happened in the field,” Rick said. “What made you pass out? Pain? Breathlessness?”
I shrugged, dropping my gaze to the floor. At least that was boringly safe with its grey-yellow linoleum. “I couldn’t breathe. I don’t remember, really. Just…air that refused to come.”
“Okay. Have you been overdoing it?”
I chuckled under my breath. “Define overdoing it.”
“Working from sun-up to sun-down, not resting, not stopping to eat a decent meal?”
“Ah.” I grinned morosely. “Based on that, then yes. I might have been overdoing it.”
Rick scowled, his Scottish accent thickening. “This isn’t a joking matter.”
“Don’t you think I don’t know that?”
“I know you’re trying to get your life in order…before you can’t. But you also have to give yourself the best possible chance—”
“No. I have to give her the best possible chance. My pain ends when I die. Hers doesn’t.”
Rick stilled. “Are you in pain?”
I clenched my jaw. I hadn’t meant to reveal that. I’d done a good job of hiding that even from Della. It wasn’t often. It wasn’t all the time. But the discomfort was starting to weigh on me.
“If you need painkillers—”
“I can handle it.”
Rick clicked his pen with sharp stabs. “It’s not about handling it, Ren. It’s about taking that uncomfortableness away, so your body can focus on other things.”
“So your answer is yet more drugs? Drugs on top of drugs.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m surprised I don’t bleed chemicals at this point.”
Rick sighed, frustrated. “What other option do you have? Be a walking infusion of pharmaceuticals or die sooner? It’s not really something that can be debated.”
My hands curled. None of this was fair.
I knew I was being a prick. I knew my surly temper wasn’t helping. And I knew that I’d deliberately done this to myself because I shouldn’t have worked so damn hard.
I knew all of that.
And yet…Della.
I couldn’t leave her in a one bedroom stable at the generosity of the Wilsons. Of course, they’d never turn her out, but it wasn’t just her anymore.
My allegiance had grown to incorporate my wife and my son.
And they both needed protecting the best way I could.
John had overstepped and given us land that we could never afford, and that ate away at me every goddamn day. But at least, by working the fields and making it earn its keep, I had an income to pay him back. A little at a time, a dollar here, a hundred there, until I’d repaid him at market value of what the hundred acres were worth.
I wouldn’t finish that duty before my dying day, but I could whittle out a large chunk. Then the land would truly belong to Della and Jacob because I’d bought it for them with blood, sweat, and the occasional tear in the dark.
A tear for everything I would miss.
A tear for everything I loved.
“Wh-what about surgery?” My voice was small, hunching in on itself.
I didn’t want to be cut open, but I would if it gave me more time.
I would do anything for another year, another day, another hour.
Rick inhaled. “Surgery is an option. However, as with everything, it comes with risks.”
“What sort of risks?”
“Well, there are a few procedures. EPP, Extra Pleural Pneumonectomy, is the most radical as it removes an entire lung, the lining around the lung, and the diaphragm. Needless to say, recovery after surgery can be long, and you’d have to change your lifestyle to accommodate living with a single lung, as well as be prepared for other complications down the line.” He clasped his hands together, discarding the clicking of his pen. “I have thought about it, I won’t lie. But with your tumours being so small and in both your lungs, it’s not something I’d recommend.”
I swallowed hard. “And the other options?”
“Pleurectomy/Decortication, also known as lung-sparing surgery. It’s more detailed than EPP but leaves the lung intact and only removes the pleura lining. Again, I wouldn’t recommend it. The only one I might consider is Thoracentesis, which can be done under local anaesthetic where a long, thin needle is used to drain fluid in the pleural space, or Pleurodesis, where talc is injected into the layers of the pleura and then suctioned out.”
I winced. “Sounds painful.”
“It’s actually a fairly straightforward procedure that requires minimal healing, and ninety percent of patients claim it gives them relief from pain and breathlessness. The lungs create scar tissue, effectively sealing the pleura and preventing any more fluid build-up.”
I nodded, doing my best to drink in long words and scary explanations.
Rick picked up his infernal pen again, clicking. “With multimodal treatment, you can still have years left, Ren. Don’t give up just because you’ve progressed. We all knew that would happen. Don’t let it get you down, okay?”
I forced a smile. “I’m not giving up, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I wouldn’t dare think that. Out of any case I’ve seen, you have something unique tying you here that will prove to be better than any surgery or drug.”
“Oh?” I raised my eyebrow, coughing softly. “What’s that?”
“Love.” He smiled. “True love has its claws in you, and I doubt it will ever let go. Fight for that. Live for that. And we’ll make sure to buy you enough time to watch your son grow.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
DELLA
2023
THAT FIRST YEAR with a new-born and a husband fighting the worst kind of unfairness, I couldn’t lie…it was the hardest year I’d ever endured.
After the initial wash of endorphins in the hospital with Ren and me kissing, watching baby Jacob as if he was the most fascinating thing we’d ever seen, and living in a cocoon of delight, life interrupted and sped up far too fast.
There was no time to tell Ren how shit-terrified I’d been when he’d collapsed.
No space to yell at him and tell him to take it slow.
He already knew he’d screwed up, and I didn’t need to drag yet more sadness into our tentative world.
So, we buckled down and fought.
God, we fought.
We fought so hard I don’t remember anything else.
All I remembered was the exhaustion from a baby thrust into a world of sad instability and eyes that were permanently swollen from all the tears I refused to shed.
While I nursed a grizzly baby, Ren had treatments every other week. One week, he’d be subjected to Keytruda—a drug I was fond of as it had helped him before. And one with chemo—a drug I was not fond of as it made him sick.
Even with the pills that Rick Mackenzie gave him to counteract the side effects, Ren had a rash where the chemicals entered his skin and complained of bone aches so bad, he submitted to taking painkillers on top of all the rest.
By the fourth session of chemo, his cheekbones were more defined and his body more sinew than muscle. He hadn’t lost weight exactly but tightened, somehow. The parts of him that made him so dependable and capable sucking deep within to fight.
By the second month of Jacob being home and the builders kindly racing to finish our house, even while we lived there, Ren became allergic to sunlight.
His eyes couldn’t handle the brightness, even with sunglasses. His skin burned instantly, even with sun cream. Whatever the doctors had injected into him had done something to his biological makeup, and it was hard not to smash apart everything in our newly finished house.
It was hard to stay strong for him when I was so helpless.
It was hard to keep Jacob happy when I didn’t know the meaning of the word myself anymore.
It was in those moments—those life-sucking, abyssal moments—that I carried my child to the willow grotto and sat amongst their fronds.
I’d allow myself to be sad, only for a moment.
I’d allow myself to talk to Jacob about things no baby should know about their terminally-ill father, piecing myself back together again to be brave.