Six Months Later
Chapter 19
Winter
“Ihave an opening at three tomorrow. Does that work?” The hospital scheduler asks.
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
I hang up the call, and my blood runs cold. Is it back?
It couldn’t be, though, could it? I feel great. My energy is back, food tastes good again, and I’ve even put on some weight. My hair is growing in, including my eyebrows, and I thought, really thought, this was behind me.
Then I got the call to go back in for results from the tests I took last week. This is the news I’ve been waiting for so I can finally go home. Instead, I know they’ll be telling me the cancer is back. Then they’ll be suggesting another round of treatment—but I can’t. I won’t do it again. I would rather die than go through that again.
They asked me to come in. I know what that means. Bad news. If it was good news, Dr. Ramirez would have told me over the phone. But they asked me in instead, so it’s bad news.
I squeeze the armrest on the sofa to ground myself to the time and place. My apartment looks much the same and also different. It’s much neater now that Chema’s gone. He left after three months of concluding treatment. He refused to leave until I proved I could go up the flight of stairs in my apartment without getting winded. When I finally managed it, he fought me on it, but I didn’t want to keep disrupting his life, not when I was finally starting to feel fine.
He made me swear I’d call him to come back if there were any setbacks. Should I call him now? No. First, I need to hear it. I won’t believe it until Dr. Ramirez says the words out loud.
I waitin exam room five, and the minutes feel like hours as I wait for Dr. Ramirez. Her face twists in concern when she sees me.
“What’s wrong?” Dr. Ramirez asks. “Are you not feeling well?”
“You tell me,” I say.
“Nothing’s wrong, Vale, but you look like you saw a ghost.”
I share my suspicions with her.
“Oh, Vale, honey—”
“It’s back, isn’t it?”
“No!” she nearly yells. “Valentina, I wanted to give you the good news in person. That’s all. Please stop reading about treatment or procedures online. It’s not the first time it’s gotten you in trouble.” Dr. Ramirez arches an eyebrow, almost making me cower.
“Good news?” I ask with all the hope I’ll allow myself.
“Yes, Valentina. Good news.” Dr. Ramirez grabs my shoulders and squeezes for a moment. A smile spreads the width of her face. “Six months remission. It’s a great milestone.”
“Really?” I have to confirm because it feels like a dream. I don’t even know when I started crying, but I feel the tears rolling down my face.
“Really,” she says. “I thought we should celebrate. I’m not working right now. Let’s go across the street to the bar. Champagne. My treat.”
I’m relievedto see Sofia working the bar when we get there. In the last six months, I have come to the bar quite a bit—at first with Chema, who started to feel cooped up all the time in the apartment. Since he left, I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Mandy and the girls atLa Oficina, though I didn’t quite partake in any of the drinking myself.
Over that time, I’ve got to know Sofia pretty well. I haven’t grow quite as close to her as I have to Mandy or Izel or Tlali, but she sure is one of the friends I have been lucky enough to make during the most horrific time of my life, and I am grateful for her. I’m glad she’s here to celebrate this moment.
“What we celebrating?” Sofia asks when Dr. Ramirez orders champagne. Dr. Ramirez just looks at me, and I know she is waiting for me to answer. She can’t divulge my health information unless I give her the green light.
“Six months in remission,” I say proudly. This is as much Dr. Ramirez’s victory as mine. From what I hear, the clinical trial is promising, despite being in its early phases.
“Wow. Congrats!” Sofia says, a face-splitting grin taking over her features.
When she comes back with two flutes filled to the brim with champagne, she sets them on the table. “On the house,” she says. “All cancer ass-whipping is rewarded atLa Oficina.”
Sofia leaves us to our drinking, and Dr. Ramirez and I are grinning like idiots at our table.