The Twelfth Child (Serendipity #1)(41)
She marched into the doctor’s office with me lolling on her arm and said, “Miss Lannigan needs to see the doctor, right now!” I thought she had a lot of nerve demanding such a thing, especially when there were a half-dozen other people in the waiting room. Cathy, who was Doctor Birnbaum’s nurse, must have realized how sick I was ‘cause right away she took us into the examination room – ahead of everybody else.
“I hate to be such a bother,” I said, when the doctor started checking me over. He just smiled and told me that I was never a bother, then he patted my knee in the most kindly way. I always thought, if you have to be sick, you ought to do it with someone like Allan Birnbaum. He told Destiny I’d have to go into the hospital for a few tests and asked if she could bring me that very afternoon. She said yes without even a flicker of hesitation.
I was in the hospital for three days, and Destiny came to visit every day. She’d get there early in the morning, sometimes before the breakfast cart came around, and she’d stay until the bell rang at night. At nine o’clock visitors had to leave and the chimes rang out so pleasant-like, you’d think it was some kind of wonderful grandfather clock, but they were dead-serious about visitors leaving. One night I was feeling especially blue and Destiny stayed after the bells rang, but the nurse came in right away and told her she’d have to leave so I could get my rest.
I won’t go on about how they did every kind of test imaginable and x-rayed me from head to toe, but I will say, I was mighty glad Destiny was with me when Doctor Birnbaum came in that Friday. He had the most somber look on his face when he sat down on my bed and took hold of my hand, right then, I knew something was wrong.
“I’m afraid I don’t have good news,” he said and shook his head like he was real sorrowful. “Those coffee grounds you threw-up, were from your liver.”
Most people think you only hear words, but Destiny was watching the doctor’s mouth like she could see the size and shape of every letter.
“It’s symptomatic of pancreatic cancer.”
“What’s the cure?” Destiny asked. She had that kind of pick-yourself-up-and-move-on attitude because she was used to dealing with problems. Me, I’d lived long enough to know, there’s no remedy for some things.
“Well,” Doctor Birnbaum said, hesitantly, like he might have preferred to choke down the words instead of spitting them out. “Pancreatic cancer is a tough customer. In some instances, we might try chemotherapy or radiation but those treatments are difficult to tolerate and not often successful in treating this type of cancer. Given Abigail’s age, I wouldn’t recommend either one.”
“What then?” Destiny asked.
“I’m afraid there’s not much we can do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Destiny’s voice got real thin and high-pitched, nothing like the way she usually spoke.
Doctor Birnbaum coughed three or four times, then finally let go of the words. “Pancreatic cancer is almost always terminal,” he said. “There’s little we can do except make sure the patient is comfortable and pain-free.”
“Little? Or nothing?” Destiny was beginning to get the message and her green eyes filled up with so much water they looked like the deep end of the ocean.
I always thought if I got such a piece of bad news I’d break down and cry, or holler about life being unfair, maybe even claim there had been a mistake because such a thing couldn’t be true, but that wasn’t what happened. I just leaned back into my pillow and let the reality of it cover me over like a heavy winter blanket. As the weight of it pressed down on me, I realized that Doctor Birnbaum was trying to tell me in the most kindly way, I was dying. Not maybe dying, but definitely dying. “How long?” I asked, trying to focus on what I needed to know.
“I can’t say definitely. Three months, six months, maybe longer.”
Doctor Birnbaum said he’d arrange for the Hospice nurses to come and take care of me but Destiny told him she’d be the one to see to my needs, whatever they might be. By the time the doctor left the room, the poor child was sobbing like her little heart was gonna break. “Hush up that crying,” I told her. “I’m an old woman, Destiny. I’ve lived a long life and a person can’t ask for more than that. Sure as a person’s born, a person’s gonna die!” I tried my best to console her, but she just kept sobbing. Finally, I said I didn’t want to hear another word about dying and such. “Whatever time I’ve got, I want to enjoy!” I told her. I wasn’t ready to think about the being dead part, I was busy focusing on how much more living time I had left; which I suppose was why I never got around to putting things in order the way I should have.
To be perfectly honest, my stomach was feeling a lot better by the time I left the hospital, so the two of us went out and had a plate of fried oysters for lunch. I’d already laid down the law about any talk of dying, so Destiny made a genuine effort to be her old self. She ordered us up martinis and told the waiter to bring us another round as soon as we’d finished those. She tried to pretend things were the same as always, but that happy-go-lucky laugh of hers sounded like a sorrowful echo.
That night Destiny went out to get chicken and biscuits from Popeye’s – the doctor said eat whatever I felt like and that’s exactly what I was doing – when she came back she brought her little valise and moved in. I had planned to tell her about the bonds after supper but we started watching Some Like it Hot, the movie where Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis join a girl’s band, and got to laughing so hard we about rolled off the sofa. I didn’t know how many more days of laughing I had left in me, so I wasn’t about to spoil this one by getting onto something serious. The thing about dying is, that even when you know it’s gonna happen, you still insist on telling yourself, there’s more time. Of course, I was figuring on the outside edge of what Doctor Birnbaum said, six months, maybe more. As it turned out, it was a lot less.