Page 63 of Family Bonds- Garrett & Justine

Since Richard Mills oversaw the oncology department, she had to imagine that would be hard to do.

“I think Jordan knew what that was like. She couldn’t hide the fact that our father was well-known where she was doing her residency.”

Her father wasn’t the chair of the department. He’d been asked before and declined. He didn’t enjoy overseeing people or dealing with what he called policy bull crap and administrative ass-kissing. She always found it funny since her father was a laid-back person.

Much like her.

“Then she understands it more. You know in my field the outcomes can be hard,” he said.

She nodded. “You lost someone?” she asked.

“Three people in a short period of time,” he said.

Her shoulders dropped. “Is that normal to happen?” she asked. She couldn’t even imagine.

“Not really,” he said. “But not unheard of. I had a heavy caseload and some tough patients. The first, she was older, in her seventies and that is always hard when someone that age is going through treatment. She had complications and didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry for that,” she said. “But I understand there are always risks.”

“There are,” he said. “You’d understand that with your job and medications. Two months later, I had another patient. One I’d had for three years. She’d had ovarian cancer and then got a reoccurrence. This time it was stage three and we started treatment right away, but after two rounds, she got the flu. She missed a month of chemo and in that time it metastasized to her brain. There wasn’t much we could do but buy time. She talked it over with her children and husband and decided to enjoy what time she had left not suffering from side effects from treatment. This had been going on when the first patient died. So she’d had four months to spend time with her family. I expected her death but still wasn’t prepared.”

“I don’t think anyone can prepare for it,” she said.

“No,” he said.

He ate the breakfast in front of him and she suspected he needed time to gather his thoughts.

“She reminded me of my mother. Her personality and strength. I was happy she made the most of her last four months.”

“But still sad to lose her,” she said, reaching her hand over. “I understand.”

“The last one died a month after, but I’d had his case for a bit. Twenty-three-year-old male with stage four colon cancer.”

“Wow,” she said. “Rare for that young.”

“His parents wanted to start chemo right away, but I needed to run more tests. At first, they thought it was stage three, but I wanted to cover my bases. It took another week to get a PET scan scheduled and done. That’s when we saw it spread to his lungs. I wanted a CAT scan of his brain to check and his parents were pushing for chemo immediately. They got other opinions who agreed with me, to check his brain.”

“You’d think they’d want to know before they started,” she said.

“It’s hard to pause when you want to start to treat,” he said. “Patients just want to get the disease out of them. They want to know they are doing something. The waiting game is the hardest.”

“But they did wait?” she asked.

“They did. We had the CAT scan two days after the PET scan. Once everything was in, we’d figure out a course of action.”

“It’s just two days,” she said. “I would have thought weeks.”

“Two days can seem like two weeks during that time,” he said. He sipped his coffee. “The cancer had spread to his brain.”

“That’s horrible,” she said.

“It is. Four oncologists all agreed to start radiation on his brain first. Once that was done, he’d go through chemo. There is only so much you can do to a body and it was important to attack the most important function, which was the brain.”

“Did his parents not agree?” she asked.

“They didn’t. They felt like it was only targeting one spot and chemo would target it all, but the chemo wouldn’t have targeted the brain and that was the fastest moving one controlling more bodily functions. We had to shrink it since we couldn’t operate. Everything was spelled out that he’d have brain damage or other more severe complications if we didn’t shrink that tumor first.”

“So you started radiation?” she asked.

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