Page 74 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

My cell rang, and I jumped like I’d just been caught trash-talking my husband.

I recognized the number, and the dark cloud that had hovered over me all weekend settled onto my shoulders. I answered.

“Maggie, it’s Noah Byrne. Sorry to call so early, but I wanted to get to you before the Monday-morning rush.”

Dr. Byrne had been my mother’s doctor, and for over twenty years he’d been Lizzie’s and mine. He’s from the School of Doctors Don’t Call with Good News. Three times a year his nurse calls me and says, “Your lab results were fine.” A call from Byrne himself could only mean that something was not fine.

“What is it, Noah?”

“Can you come in this morning?” he said.

Bad news, if it’s notthatbad, can be conveyed over the phone. Really horrible news is always delivered face-to-face, an outstretched doctor’s hand to hold, a box of tissues on his desk.

“That sounds ominous,” I said.

“Don’t project, Maggie. We’ll talk when you get here. My first patient is at eight. Do you think you can be here before then?”

A half hour later I was in his office. And despite the fact that he’d said, “Don’t project,” I had. And I’d been right.

“The lab here in the hospital gave me the results of your blood test last week,” he said. “I didn’t like what I saw, but I didn’t want to alarm you, so I had Rachel draw a second round and sent them to the Kensington Lab in St. Louis. They’re top of the line. They emailed me the results last night. They’re not good, Maggie.”

He slid a three-page printout of my blood test across the desk and started to take me through it line by line.

“No,” I said, halfway through the first page. I turned the printout over. “Plain English, please.”

“You have the same condition your mother had.”

“How much time do I have?”

“Whoa, Maggie. Slow down. We can fight this.”

“That’s what you told my mother.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I regretted saying them. “I’m sorry, Noah. You did everything you could.”

“I wish I could have done more, but you have a better shot than she did. The medical landscape has changed. Chemotherapy has come a long way since your mother’s day.”

“For breast cancer, yes. Every year a million people march to raise money for a cure. But nobody gives a shit about some unpronounceable blood disease they never heard of. The truth is that zero strides have been made since 1997. And I know that for a fact because I’ve consulted another doctor.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Google. According to him, ‘familial HLH is fatal with a survival rate of two to six months. Chemo can temporarily control the disease, but symptoms inevitably return.’”

“So that buys you time, and then we look for other options. There’s a clinical trial for a new drug that?—”

“Do you ever buy lottery tickets?” I said, cutting him off.

“What do you mean?”

“Lottery tickets, Noah. You know—Mega Millions or Powerball.”

“Not often, but when the jackpot is some outrageous amount, I’ll do a ten-dollar quick pick.”

“And once you have the ticket in your pocket, do you think about what you’re going to do with it when you win that outrageous amount of money?”

He smiled. “Virginia and I are doing very well financially. We could win half a billion dollars, and it wouldn’t change our lives that much.”

“So why buy the lottery ticket?”

“Because on the remote chance that we did win, we would open a foundation and give the money to those in need. Maggie, we seem to have gotten away from the matter at hand. Why are we even talking about this?”

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