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“You already know some?”
“No.”
“Just on general principle, then.”
“More as a practical matter.”
“You need to see this woman ASAP,” Sam Wylie says. “You saying no is not an option.”
“Lawyers always have options.”
“Jane. The longer you put off treatment, the greater the chance you’re shortening your life.”
“And that would be so unfair, my life being shortened this way, don’t you think? Why can’t you just treat me?”
“Because you need a cancer specialist, for fuck’s sake!” she shouts at me, just like that. “I can’t treat this. They can.”
“With treatments that would do everything except cure me,” I say.
It is still only midday, and I suddenly feel exhausted.
“Which would likely slow the progress of the disease, hopefully for a long, long time.”
“Or not.”
“Come on,” she says. “I’m speaking to you as your doctorandas your friend. The sooner you attack this thing, the better chance you might give yourself of living past the prognosis I gave you at the start.”
“Not to get stuck on this one point,” I say, “but the cancer could still kill me anyway, whatever I do.”
“But perhaps later rather than sooner.”
“So I might live longer than a year? No, wait. I forgot I plea-bargained with you for fourteen months.”
“You’re being an idiot,” she says. “And I say that with love.”
“Not sure I’m feeling the love right now.”
“Jane. The sooner you get treatment the sooner we can see how you’rerespondingto the treatment.”
“And if I respond well?”
“Then your life gets extended.”
“And if I don’t?”
She takes another deep breath. “Then it’s a question of how fast the horse is going and how close it is to the cliff.”
“Horse imagery?”
She smiles. “I save it for horse’s asses.”
It occurs to me in the moment how much she loves me and how much I love her, and how we have been friends so much longer than our relationship as doctor and pissy patient.
“Your bedside manner sucks—you know that, right?”
“Only with you,” she says. “Most of my patients find me quite welcoming.”
I wonder if I look as tired to Sam right now as I feel. I’ve started to lose weight, if only incrementally. And the soreness in my throat is slowly getting worse, as Sam Wylie told me it would, like low-grade strep that just won’t go away.
