Chapter 6 - THE DIAGNOSIS
Three weeks later, I learned the mass was cancer.
Early-stage.
Small.
Treatable.
Those words became the ones I repeated when fear tried to remove all the others.
My oncologist, Dr. Patel, was careful not to make promises.
We discussed surgery.
Radiation.
Medication.
The added considerations of recovering from kidney donation.
My transplant team coordinated with oncology.
Everything suddenly became calendars and bloodwork again.
I cried in the hospital parking garage after the appointment.
Not because I thought I was dying.
Because I was exhausted by needing courage.
I had spent months preparing to save Victor.
Now I needed that energy back for myself.
My daughter, Emily, flew home the next day.
I had delayed telling her about the marriage until I had the biopsy result.
She walked through my front door, saw the new locks, and said:
“Mom, what happened?”
I told her everything at the kitchen table.
Victor.
Rita.
The key.
The draft.
Then cancer.
Emily stared at me for almost thirty seconds.
Then stood.
“Where is Dad?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“What?”
“You’re not going to him tonight.”
“He did this while you—”
“I know.”
“After you gave him a kidney?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled.
“Mom.”
I reached for her hand.
“I don’t need you to choose between us.”
“I’m choosing you.”
“No. You’re allowed to be furious. But he’s still your father.”
“He gave your house to his girlfriend.”
“He tried.”
Emily laughed bitterly.
“Thank God you’re correcting the legal distinction.”
It sounded so much like me that I smiled.
Then I started crying.
She came around the table.
May you like
Held me.
And for the first time since the hospital, I let somebody take care of me without feeling indebted.
