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THIRTY-ONE
Cole
Raya leftmy place the afternoon before.
I’d planned on her staying Friday night but was sure she would have some reason to have to go home on Saturday. When she didn’t, I took her out riding on the ranch and showed her around the place, giving her a glimpse into my world.
I could tell she’d had a blast, and though she tried to argue with me about staying the night again Saturday night, I managed to convince her it was the right thing to do. After all, it was such a long drive back to her place, I didn’t want her to get tired behind the wheel. It would be a lot safer for her to stay another night and leave after breakfast in the morning.
Of course, staying with me to get some sleep didn’t happen.
We had sex several more times, even having shower sex Sunday morning.
I cooked her a breakfast with the leftover steak and some scrambled eggs, then we took two hours to hang out on my back patio and enjoy the early morning. I managed to get her to stay for lunch, but then she insisted she had to get back home to get some things done before the next work week. I didn’t want her to go.
I didn’t want the fantasy of us being together and everything being okay to end. But, I had no control over that. She had to get going, and I had to be okay with it. Even if it did mean that it was now Sunday, and I had to deal with the doctor the next day.
And the vet, too, for that matter.
Ham texted me on Saturday and let me know Maveric had been taken into the emergency animal clinic that wasn’t far from the ranch. He felt it was best for Maveric to be under direct supervision for a few days while we got the infection in his leg under control, and I was okay with that. I asked if he had gotten a hold of the owner, but Ham let me know that he’d sent a text to the guy, and so far hadn’t heard anything in return.
I decided to call the owner directly that afternoon, but first I wanted to get my own doctor visit out of the way and speak with the vet about Maveric before I talked to the owner. I didn’t want to call him when I didn’t have information to share. That was about the worst thing to do as a business owner. And, there was no denying I was in a tense mood with my own doctor visit ahead of me.
I had no idea what to expect, and I wasn’t looking forward to finding out.
I didn’t remember my mother’s cancer treatment when I was a kid, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. I was scared shitless facing it on my own, that was for damn sure, and I didn’t know what the next move would be. I knew it would be a bad idea to ask anyone what they thought. I wasn’t the kind of guy to get online and see what it said, but I knew Ham was.
I didn’t want to get more freaked out than I was already, and I knew the more I read about it without talking to the doctor himself, the worse it would be. It had been difficult not sharing with news with Raya. There were moments during the weekend when I had really wanted to open up to her and share with her what I was going through, but again, I didn’t want to share the news with anyone until I was sure of what I was doing next.
And I wouldn’t know that until I talked to the doctor.
“I’m glad you made it in,” he said to me, shaking my hand. “I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances, but there’s hope. First things first, I don’t want you to think of this as a death sentence.”
“Kind of hard not to when my mom died of cancer when I was a kid,” I said.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Things have come a long way in the past twenty plus years, I can assure you of that. I’m not minimizing what you are going through, but I’m telling you that there’s hope. You’re not going to die. Not from this. You have age on your side, and we got to it early enough to be able to localize it to your leg,” the doctor said. “So, as it stands right now, you’re not going to have to worry about it having spread to other parts of your body.”
“Okay, so what’s the bad news then?” I asked. “What are the options here? I’ve never heard of anyone getting cancer and having it be no big deal. Hit me with your worst.”
“You’re not going to like the options, I know that. Cancer is never an easy thing to treat,” he said. “But thank God you do have options.”
“Just give them to me,” I replied. “Seriously.”
He laid them all out on the table for me. My treatment options ranged from doing chemotherapy and radiation to amputation. None of it sounded like anything I wanted to partake in, but there wasn’t a good alternative, either.
“And if I do nothing at all?” I asked.
“Then it’s going to spread. It’s already in your bones in your leg. If you leave it alone and do nothing, I can’t tell you how long you’ll have before it starts to pop up elsewhere in your body. That would be an ultimate death sentence. Not to scare you into doing anything, but I want you to know that not treating it is the worst thing you could do,” he replied.
I sighed. My options were few, and they were bleak options at that. I didn’t have really any out to look to that wouldn’t change my life drastically in one way or another. Perhaps the worst thing of all being that I knew I couldn’t drag Raya through this with me. I just couldn’t.
She had so much going for her. So much going on in her life. I wasn’t going to drag her through the stress and trauma of being with someone with cancer. Especially if I was looking at losing my leg over it.
“How much time do I have to decide?” I asked.
“Well, I’m sure it goes without saying that it would be better for you to make a decision sooner rather than later. However, when it comes to big decisions like this, I’m obviously going to advise you to take a few days to really think about it. I’ll call you again in a week and we can touch base on where you are with everything, and we’ll go from there. In the meantime, let me get you a prescription for some painkillers that will help with what’s going on right now.”
“Thank you,” I said.
