Blinding Trust (Mitchell Family, #7)(58)

I think even if we weren’t related, he would still be in my life. As children, he had always taken up for me and protected me. We had this connection that seemed to be eternal. Did I want to be with Ty? Of course not. Still, I couldn’t get by without his friendship.

Ty took Colt’s attack as the start to a new battle. Just as I would have suspected, buy the time the family got wind of it, Colt was the bad guy. Even his mother had issues with Colt blowing up. Obviously, she’d been around me and Ty when Colt and Noah were in California. She was a keen woman who could see beyond what was on the outside. Even with her being able to sense that we were close, I think she knew that neither of us would ever cross those boundaries.

With a wedge formed between my two favorite guys, Miranda and Amy didn’t talk to me as much. It was weird considering Ty called me everyday. At first, I thought it was because he was the only one who knew about my medical issue. I thought maybe they were offended, even though it wasn’t meant to be that way, at all.

Colt never said a word about me talking to Ty every day. He usually called in the mornings when he knew Colt wasn’t at the house. Since the whole family now knew about my predicament, they bombarded me with attention. Sometimes it was just too overwhelming. It only reminded me that I had a serious matter to worry about.

Life became hard to focus on that next week. If it weren’t for the kids, I think I would have gone crazy.

Colt said that things wouldn’t change between us, but already I could see him doing extra things to appease me. Not that I didn’t appreciate it, because I most certainly did. I just hated that he was doing it because he felt sorry for what I was going through. All in all, I knew he was going through it as well. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t in this mess alone.

The doctor’s office called on Thursday. I was sitting down matching socks when the phone rang. I think I just knew it was them calling. After a minute, I had an appointment to go in and talk to the doctor that afternoon. I sat there with that phone in my hand just staring at it for at least twenty minutes. I wasn’t shaking or crying. No, I was perfectly still, realizing that this was really happening.

Finally, when I noticed how long I’d been frozen in place, I called Colt and told him that he needed to come home. I didn’t have to tell him why. I think he was expecting the phone call to come when he wasn’t home.

The second he walked in the door, I broke down. We didn’t even know the extent of the results. All we knew was that if it were nothing, they would have told us. We needed to prepare for the worst and just pray it wasn’t that bad.

Colt called my mother to let her know, since I wasn’t in any condition to talk to anyone. By noon, we were on our way to learn my fate.

I was more than petrified. I didn’t know how to feel or act. I knew the risks and the statistics. I knew there was a chance that my life was going to be cut short. I thought about my beautiful babies again. How was I going to be able to look them in the eyes if I found out I wasn’t going to live much longer.

Colt patted me on the leg when we’d arrived and I hadn’t noticed.

We walked into the office holding hands. I was happy about that, considering at any moment I felt like I was going to pass out. I tried to think of all the women and men before me that had come into this office for the same reason. It sickened me to think that it happens so often.

The front desk lady took us right back into the doctor’s office. While waiting for him to come in, Colt reached his hand over and grabbed mine. “I love you, darlin’.”

“I’m so scared, Colt.” I could feel myself shaking in the seat.

The doctor came in catching our attention. Colt cleared his throat and reached over to shake hands with the man.

He sat down across the desk from us and opened up my chart. “Sorry it took so long getting these results. I know it’s hard playing the waiting game.” He pulled out a couple pictures and pointed to certain areas. “This was the spot in question. On this imagine it looks a lot bigger than it actually is.” He read something and then looked up at me. “The good news is that this was detected very early.”

“What’s the bad news?” I couldn’t wait for him to give me the run around. If I was going to die, I wanted to know immediately. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“The area that we biopsied came back malignant.”

Colt squeezed my hand, but said nothing. I could barely get the words out. “So, I have cancer? Am I going to die?”

He put his hands up. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mrs. Mitchell. The first thing I would recommend doing is a surgical procedure to remove the mass. If we act now, we can stop the spreading to surrounding areas.”

“So, you can just remove it and I’ll be cancer free?”

“Not exactly. Removing the mass is just the first step. Once we remove the malignant tumor, we can then do a thorough check to make sure that your body is cancer free. Unfortunately, once you have this, is more likely to come back. Many women end up getting mastectomies as a preventative procedure.”

I was crying, but still able to talk. “You want me to cut off my breasts?”

“I usually give my patients the option upon early detection. Listen Mrs. Mitchell, one in eight women will experience what you’re going through right now. Even men can get breast cancer. Early detection, as is your case, is the best result. We are able to attack the cells before they can broadcast themselves to other organs. It is impertinent that we remove it as soon as possible. However, I would recommend one round of radiation and then we will retest after that.”