“Okay, let’s just fudge a little bit, no one needs to know,” the nurse said, twisting the knob on Tube Control Central. Dilaudid. Cartoons. Oh, God, thank God, Dilaudid! Who invented that drug? Write him a letter. Knight him. Award the Nobel Prize to Dilaudid Man. Where was that knob? A handy thing to know. Whew! Whammo! Swirling, throbbing ecstasy! And who was that nurse? Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa would be proud…oh, boy! It wasn’t just relief from the surgery; she suddenly realized how much psychic pain she had been carrying and now it was gone with one swoop of a magic wand. The cartoons. Bliss…

His voice wasn’t in a can, never had been. It was a normal voice, maybe a little high for a man. Not that he was effeminate. The whole problem with him was that he didn’t seem real. He wasn’t a flesh-and-blood kinda guy. Where was the empathy? Why did he get into this field if he couldn’t empathize? In this field, empathy should be your stock-in-trade.

“The breast is fine, just a benign lump. We brought a specialist in to get it, and I just reviewed the pathology report. It’s nothing to worry about. The other part is not…so good. I’m afraid your abdomen…it’s spread throughout your abdomen…it looks like little Grape-Nuts, actually. It’s exceedingly rare and it’s…it’s a rapid form of…can…cer. We couldn’t really take any of it out. I spent most of my time in there untangling adhesions. We’re going to have to give you cisplatin…if it weren’t for the adhesions, we could pump it into your abdomen directly—you wouldn’t get so sick that way—but those adhesions are a problem and may cause problems further along.” Her room was freezing, but the thin oncologist was beginning to perspire. “It’s a shame,” he said, looking down at her chart. “You’re in such perfect health…otherwise.”

She knew this was going to happen yet she heard herself say, “Doctor, do you mean…I’ve got to take—”

“Chemo? Yeah. But don’t worry about that yet. Let’s just let you heal up for a while.” He slammed her chart shut and…whiz, bang, he was outta there.

Goodbye, see ya.

The guessing game was over and now it was time for the ordeal. She didn’t want to hear any more details—he’d said something about a 20 percent five-year survival rate. Might as well bag it. She wasn’t a fighter, and she’d seen what chemo had done to her husband, John. This was it. Finis!