“No, we’re not. I don’t need to hear how you couldn’t help yourself and that she doesn’t mean anything. It was just sex. That’s bullshit. You went to her to get what you wouldn’t even let me try to give you. I get it. But I’m not going to share my man with other women. I have more self-respect than that. If I ever trust another man again, I’ll make damn sure he can be faithful,” I hissed.
His face flushed and his mouth tightened. He opened his mouth to say something, but the door opened and in came Zara and a man I assumed was Dr. Beatty. He introduced himself and got to the point.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Beatty. You must be Hope’s parents. I’ll be the doctor treating her leukemia. I bet you have a bunch of questions.”
“I do. By the way, I’m her mother. He’s not her parent, so I want all discussions to be with me, not him.” Bear growled at my remark. Dr. Beatty looked alarmed. “Please tell me what the plan is.” I wasn’t going to waste time kicking Bear out. I’d do that later.
“The good news is she has the most common type of leukemia and it usually responds well to treatment in kids. I’ll have to do more tests, but I think we caught it early. I want to start her out with targeted treatment first. It’s less harsh than mixing a lot of drugs, which is what we do when we give regular chemo. From there, she’ll be put on a cycle of being on and off the meds. If we think it’s necessary, we could switch later to chemo, but that’s only if she isn’t responding to treatment.”
“What about stem cell replacement? Zara said sometimes that’s done,” Bear asked him.
Dr. Beatty hesitated before answering him. “It could be. We usually don’t do that unless the patient has abnormal cell genetics or other high-risk ALL features.If we determine she is one of those patients, then we’ll look for a donor who’s a match for her.”
“You can test me, I might be a match,” I told him quickly.
“We’ll test you later if we think that’s the route to take. Sometimes it can be a parent or a sibling. Other times it’s a complete stranger. She has to stay here for the first four weeks, as we get the initial treatment started. She’ll need to be on strict isolation precautions. No one allowed in without a mask, gown, and the works. After that first month, she’ll be on a repeating cycle of meds. It’ll require her to come back here and get treated for six to nine months. If that’s successful, she’ll then go on maintenance chemo, which is pills for eighteen to twenty-four months. At the end of all this, if she is put in and stays in remission for five years, she’ll be considered cured.”
My head was aching with all the information. He was saying she would be spending the next two to three years being treated and if it was a success, I wouldn’t know if she was cured until she was almost nine or ten years old!
“What are the chances of that happening? Of her being cured?” I whispered.
“It’s ninety percent if she has low risk factors. We’ll take a comprehensive history of both your family and her father’s to see. A lot of those who are cured live very long lives, Ms. Graham,” Dr. Beatty said.
I knew he was trying to reassure me, but I was stuck back on what he said about her father’s family history. Oh God, how would I find that out? There was no way I could ask Todd. I looked at Bear in despair. He reached out to me, but he was too late. I felt myself falling forward and the world going black.