Chapter 24
“Come in,” Olivia called, after hearing a light knock on the door
of her hospital room. She was hoping to
see Nick, but when the door opened, Dr. Avery walked in instead.
It was the next afternoon, and Olivia had gone through a whole
battery of tests that morning in order for the doctors to find out what had
caused her seizure the day before.
Olivia already knew – it was her tumor.
But she was in no way prepared for the news she was about to receive.
“Good afternoon, Olivia,” Dr. Avery said.
“Hi,” she replied.
“We need to talk,” the doctor said grimly, sitting down beside
Olivia’s bed.
“Okay…” Olivia said nervously.
Dr. Avery sighed. “Olivia, there’s
really no easy way to say this… but your tumor is still growing. Even more rapidly than before.”
“Even after all the radiation?” she asked in shock.
“Yes. It seems the
radiation hasn’t helped at all. It’s
bigger than it was before and is growing quickly.”
Olivia’s heart sank. “So
now what?” she asked meekly.
Dr. Avery looked at her sympathetically. “I’m so sorry, but there’s really nothing
left we can do. It’s too big and too
close to the brain stem to operate on.
And the radiation isn’t helping.
We’ve done all we can.”
“So you’re saying there’s no hope? I’m going to die?!” she cried, panic rising
within her.
“I’m very sorry, Olivia, but yes.
There’s nothing else we can do to help you.”
Olivia fought back tears.
“Wh- what will it be like?” she asked.
“Over the next few weeks, your symptoms will get steadily
worse. You’ll get more headache … you’ll
have trouble with balance and coordination… your speech will start to slur…
your vision might get blurry; you could even go blind… you might have some
memory loss or changes in personality… and towards the end, you’ll be
bedridden. And eventually, you will go
to sleep, and you won’t wake up. You’ll
just stop breathing, and your heart will stop beating. It will be a painless death. We’ll give you medications to control your
seizures and make sure you won’t be in pain.
By the end, you probably won’t even be aware of what is happening to
you. And you won’t feel a thing.”
“How long do I have? Just
‘a few weeks’?” she asked, her tears rolling slowly down her cheeks.
“It’s hard to say. It may
be a matter of weeks. Or it may be
months,” Dr. Avery said.
Olivia nodded tearfully, wiping her eyes. “Um… can I be alone for a little while?” she
asked softly.
“Of course,” Dr. Avery replied gently. “I’ll be back later to check on you and
answer some of your questions. Would
you like me to call anyone for you?”
“No, I’ll call,” she whispered, thinking of her poor parents, her
friends back home, and of course, Nick.
How would they all take it? She
didn’t even want to know. All she knew
was that telling them she was going to die would be the hardest thing she would
ever have to do in her life.
After all, there’s no easy way to call up a person and say, “Hey,
guess what? I’m dying.”
***
Olivia ended up only making one call, to her parents. And after she got off the phone with them,
she broke down in sobs and refused to call anyone else. She knew her parents would let her friends
know, and Nick… well, Nick would find out soon enough.
He came by that evening, just as she figured he would. He had told her the night before that he had
to go back to
“How ya feeling today?” he asked, smiling at her, as he plopped
down next to her.
“Fine,” she replied, forcing a smile back and hoping her eyes
didn’t look red to him, for she had been crying steadily pretty much ever since
she had found out the news. “How about
you? How did rehearsal go?”
“Okay,” he said. “But who
cares about that? How did your tests
go?”
“Fine. No biggie,” she said
casually, shrugging.
“So is everything okay then?” he asked, looking slightly confused.
“Yup. I don’t even have to
go for my radiation treatments anymore,” she said, leaving out the small fact
that she wasn’t going to need radiation anymore because she was going to die
anyway.
“Oh. Well, that’s good,”
Nick said, looking deeply into her eyes, as if he knew she was hiding
something.
Olivia looked away and quickly changed the subject. “So, you start the tour tomorrow,
right? In
“Yeah. I have to catch a flight
up there tomorrow,” he said. “Hey,
speaking of the tour, if you’re not having radiation anymore, couldn’t you just
come to
Olivia bit her lip.
Great. Now she was stuck. What excuse could she make up now? “Um… actually, no. My parents decided to come down and see
me. They… uh… they’re worried about
me.” She laughed nervously. “You know how parents can be. Anyway, they’re gonna be here tomorrow, so I
can’t go on tour with you until the day we planned on, in a few weeks.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie.
Her parents were coming the next day, and they definitely were
worried about her. But about the tour…
she wasn’t even sure if she would be alive then, let alone be able to travel
with Nick. But she decided not to bring
that up now.
“Oh. Well, that’s okay, I
understand. At least you don’t have to
go to those stupid radiation appointments anymore,” Nick said.
Olivia forced a smile.
“Yup. And thanks for
understanding.”
“No problem. You know how
my parents worry about me too. I
understand completely.”
Olivia smiled sadly, remembering the days when she had been at
this very hospital, visiting Nick after his suicide attempt. It seemed like ages ago, but really, it had
only been a few months earlier. Now it seemed the tables had turned, and here
was Nick, visiting her in the hospital.
The only thing that was different was that, unlike Nick, Olivia
was never going to get better.
***
