AN. I was surprised by how many people liked Loghan, with his one line! Haha.
Chapter Eleven
Dr Crowe was a surprisingly tall, thin man. Elphaba guessed he had to be in his late forties, but he looked much younger. He wore wire rimmed spectacles, which he took off to greet Elphaba.
"Miss Thropp, I presume?"
"Yes," Elphaba nodded, stepping into the room.
Dr Crowe nodded. "Please, have a seat."
Elphaba sat stiffly in the offered chair, her whole body tense.
At first she thought it was odd that Dr Crowe didn't seem surprised or perturbed by her skin, but then figured Nurse Rapp must have mentioned it in her file. Either that or news of the green girl had spread further than she'd thought.
"I'm not sure how much Nurse Rapp told you-"
"She said there was something off about my blood test and you were concerned about the lump on my neck," Elphaba interrupted.
Dr Crowe nodded. "Yes. So the first thing I want to do today is take some more blood and give you a full check up. Ok?"
Elphaba nodded.
Dr Crowe had an exam room adjacent to his office, and it was there that Dr Crowe and a nurse took Elphaba.
"How are you with blood tests?" the nurse asked her.
"Isn't that a bit like asking someone how they are with getting your eyes gauged out?" Elphaba asked dryly.
The nurse laughed. "It's not that painful."
"It doesn't exactly tickle, either," Elphaba retorted.
"I'll grant you that," the nurse conceded with a smile. "I'll be as quick as I can, I promise."
She drew the blood, and Elphaba winced as the needle was pushed into her skin, closing her eyes and forcing herself to take deep, even breaths.
"All done!" the nurse chirped as she deftly removed the needle and placed a bandage over the spot.
She was so chipper she reminded Elphaba of Galinda and she nodded in response with a surge of guilt, half wishing her best friend was here with her, but the other half of her was glad she wasn't.
Dr Crowe asked her what felt like a million questions about her medical history, which Elphaba knew little beyond her own. It was hardly something Frex discussed with her. Then he asked about her symptoms and Elphaba told him everything she could think of that might be relevant, dating back as far as their Emerald City visit.
"Alright, now I want to give you a complete physical exam," Dr Crowe informed her.
Elphaba nodded reluctantly. She wasn't looking forward to this, she hated revealing more skin than she had to. The nurse was clearly planning to stay, which made it slightly less uncomfortable and Elphaba sat there incredibly self-conscious as she was poked, prodded and stared at, sitting on an examination table in her underwear.
"Have you had any tingling in your arms and legs? Feeling bloated? Dizziness? Swollen arms or legs?"
Elphaba shook her head. "No. Not that I've noticed."
Dr Crowe spent a long time examining the lump on her neck, and also closely examining her underarms, neck, chest and groin area.
"Have you noticed this before?" he asked eventually, looking up at her.
Elphaba was confused. Dr Crowe was gently pressing on a spot under her arm, and she noticed that there was a small lump underneath his finger.
"N-no," she stammered. "I didn't know that was there."
"Hmm," Dr Crowe said, and Elphaba couldn't decipher his tone.
Then he straightened up and looked at her over his glasses. "Miss Elphaba, I want to do an excisional biopsy of the two lumps we found."
"An excisional biopsy?" Elphaba repeated.
"Yes. That means we give you a local anaesthetic and just cut the lumps out to examine under the microscope."
Elphaba was stunned. "You can do that now? Here? Don't I have to be admitted for that?"
Dr Crowe smiled. "You would if we had to give you a general anaesthetic or if what we wanted to biopsy was deep beneath the skin, but these won't require that."
"And once you do the biopsy, that will tell you what I have?"
"It will confirm my suspicions, yes," Dr Crowe nodded.
Elphaba was silent, trying to take it all in. "How long?"
"I can rush the labs and have them back in a few hours," he promised.
Elphaba took a shaky breath and nodded. "Ok, then."
The nurse handed her a paper gown to put on and once she was changed, they had her lie down on the table, with her arm out to the side.
As she lay there, watching Dr Crowe and the nurse move around the room in preparation, Elphaba's stomach was doing somersaults. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to stare up at the ceiling and take deep breaths. It was mostly an apprehensive feeling, and as she lay there, she had the sudden strong impulse to grab on to something. She felt like a small child who had lost their security blanket or something. And as embarrassing as it was, the thought of having something solid to grab onto was reassuring.
"Excuse me," she addressed the nurse.
"Yes?"
"Um... can- can people be in here? Besides us, I mean?"
Understanding dawned in the nurse's eyes. "Do you have a family member with you?"
Elphaba shook her head. "No, just a friend. He's in the waiting room."
The nurse nodded. "I'll get him for you."
Elphaba managed a weak smile. "Thanks."
She felt a bit silly for even asking, but Boq didn't look bothered when he followed the nurse into the room a few moments later.
"Hey."
"Hi," she smiled. "Welcome to the party. I thought it'd be nice to see a friendly face," she said, almost apologetically.
Boq smiled back. "Sure."
"Alright Elphaba, are you ready?" Dr Crowe asked.
Elphaba nodded faintly.
Boq moved over to stand by the side of Elphaba that wasn't about to be cut open, but he was unprepared for when Dr Crowe brought over the needle that contained the local anaesthetic. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped slightly.
"We're going to do your underarm first," the nurse told her, and Elphaba nodded.
She looked away as Dr Crowe moved forward with the needle, and she was surprised as Boq abruptly grabbed her hand.
Boq looked surprised too, as though he hadn't planned to do it, but Elphaba didn't remove her hand. She actually found it comforting, although she partly wished that it was Fiyero, Nessa or Galinda holding her hand.
She felt the pinch of the needle as it entered her skin and she involuntarily clutched Boq's hand tighter. There came a slight sensation of burning that spread outward which took a few moments before it faded somewhat.
"Can you feel that?" Dr Crowe asked her.
Elphaba felt nothing. "No."
"Good."
Elphaba kept her eyes trained on the other side of the room, and a few moments later, she felt an odd feeling. It wasn't pain, it was more like a feeling of pressure, as though someone was drawing on her with a pen and pressing hard against the skin. It was at least five minutes before the doctor stepped aside and the nurse stepped in to clean and dress the incision.
The lump on her neck was on the same side as the lump on her underarm had been, and Elphaba wasn't sure whether she was more relaxed about the second incision or not. She knew kind of what to expect this time, but it was still an uncomfortable and tension-filled process.
This time, when the local anaesthetic was delivered, the burning feeling seemed more intense and took longer to lessen. The pressure feeling, which Elphaba now realised was the scalpel cutting open her skin, seemed more intense too; and she clutched Boq's hand so tight she broke the skin.
"Sorry," she apologised but Boq waved it off.
"It's fine."
"The anaesthesia is going to wear off in about half an hour," the nurse warned her as she dressed the cut on her neck.
"It's going to be painful."
That seemed a bit obvious to Elphaba, but she didn't say so.
"When will I find out the results?" Elphaba asked.
"Dr Crowe is going to take them to the lab immediately to analyse them personally, so hopefully it should be within a few hours."
Elphaba felt a touch of relief at that knowledge. She couldn't imagine having to wait much longer to learn the truth, and even worse, keeping the secret from Galinda, Fiyero and Nessa. But at the same time, she felt cold. The "few hours" stretched out before her, and it felt like an eternity.
"What do we do until then?" she asked, feeling slightly helpless.
"We could actually go to the reading at the bookshop?" Boq suggested.
Elphaba liked that idea. Then they wouldn't actually be lying. She looked at Dr Crowe.
"Can I leave and come back?" she asked him.
"I don't see why not," Dr Crowe nodded.
Boq left the room so that Elphaba could get dressed again, which she had to do carefully when considering the incisions on her neck and underarm.
"If it starts to be too painful or bleed a lot, come back," the nurse instructed her, handing her two aspirin she could take for the pain if needed.
It didn't really hurt yet, it was more like a dull ache but it still felt mostly numb. She was sure though, that once the anaesthetic wore off, it would definitely hurt.
"How are you doing?" Boq asked her as she met him in the waiting room.
Elphaba was quiet. "I'm just trying not to think about it," she said finally. "I think not knowing is worse, but I'm not so sure I want to know."
"Did they tell you what they're testing for?"
Elphaba's mouth tightened. "No. I don't understand why. What could be so bad that they won't tell me?"
She'd stopped walking and Boq tried to come up with an excuse.
"Well, maybe they don't want to worry you over nothing," Boq tried to console her.
"Well, maybe that's not their decision to make," Elphaba retorted.
She turned on her heel and re-entered the office, Boq following a step behind.
"I want to know what you're testing me for," she said bluntly.
Dr Crowe looked surprised. "Miss Thropp, we're going to be looking at a variety of-"
"No. You said you had a suspicion. What is it?"
Dr Crowe paused for a moment and then sighed. "Your symptoms match the typical signs of Hodgkin's Lymphoma."
Elphaba felt the blood drain from her face and she went completely still. Hodgkin's lymphoma. Cancer.
"Oh."
It was the only sound she could force her throat to say.
"It's not definite yet," Dr Crowe was hasty to reassure her. "It could be something else. Let's just wait for the biopsy results, shall we?"
Elphaba nodded mutely, and then turned and left the room. Her feet carried her aimlessly from the office, her head whirling.
"Elphaba?"
She jumped, and as she turned to Boq, she couldn't help but laugh sheepishly.
"Wow. Déjà vu. You must be really sick of me jumping a mile every time you talk to me these days."
Boq had that look on his face. "Elphaba-"
"Come on, we'll be late to the reading," she interrupted, turning away and striding away, slamming the button for the elevator.
Boq said nothing as he joined her, but Elphaba avoided his gaze. She didn't want to have to see the pity in his eyes, she didn't want to have to accept his condolences for news which hadn't been confirmed yet; although in an instant, it was ten times harder for Elphaba to maintain her mantra and hope that this could still be nothing.
The silent word hung in the air around them. CANCER. You didn't have to have any medical knowledge to know it was hardly an insignificant matter. Elphaba knew what it was- a potential death sentence. Elphaba had only ever known one person who had had cancer before; Kieva, the woman who had tutored Elphaba and Nessarose in their youth after Frex had decided between Elphaba's skin and Nessa's disability, they couldn't attend regular school.
She and Elphaba had never been especially close, Kieva had been as wary of the green girl as any other Munchkin, and Elphaba at that age, was particularly resentful of anyone who treated her as though she had leprosy or some horrendible contagious disease. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer when Elphaba was eleven and had only worked for them a few months after that. Elphaba remembered how she had worn a wig when she lost her hair, and once- the only time Elphaba had dared to ask her about it, she had described the fight as a war.
Which, Elphaba thought with a shudder, she had lost. Kieva had died two years later when the disease had spread through her entire body. Frex had taken his daughters to call on her about two weeks before she died, and Elphaba would never forget the sight of her lying in bed, too weak to even talk or eat. She had just been waiting to die.
Elphaba was pretty sure Boq had known her too, and wondered if her friend was thinking of that.
"How am I going to tell them?" she asked finally, her voice quiet as the elevator made its way down.
Boq didn't know what to tell her, and he certainly didn't envy her the task. Nessa, Galinda and Fiyero... her sister, best friend and boyfriend. The three closest people in Elphaba's life, and he knew it would destroy them all to hear it.
"Why don't we wait until the results come back?" he said instead.
"Maybe there's a book in the bookstore. A Beginner's Guide to Telling People You're Dying," she said dryly, with a wry smile.
She was stunned when Boq gripped her upper arm tightly and turned to her, tight lines around his mouth.
"Well for starters, don't say that," he said fiercely. "You're not dying, Elphaba. We don't even know for sure-"
"You heard the doctor, I have all the symptoms. The biopsy is just a formality," Elphaba shot back.
"That doesn't mean you're dying," he said firmly. "You're the most stubborn person I know, and I don't believe you're just going to lie down and let this break you. You're going to fight, and you'll win."
Elphaba paused for a moment. "You don't know that for sure, although I appreciate the confidence," Elphaba replied softly.
"Are you going to tell them- Nessa, Galinda, Fiyero... are you really going to tell them that you have this disease and you're going to let it dictate your life? That you're just going to give up and let it do to you what it did to Miss Kieva?"
Their tutor, he did remember her, Elphaba thought with wide eyes.
And then she thought about what he was saying. She was still silent when the elevator reached the lobby and they left the hospital.
"No," she said finally, looking over at him. "I'm not."
Boq grinned, to her surprise. "Yeah, I didn't think so. You just needed reminding."
Elphaba didn't know what to say. "Why are you doing this? Like you said, we're not close friends."
Boq shrugged. "We are friends. Good friends, even if we're not that close, aren't we? Besides... I'm close friends with Fiyero, your boyfriend. I dated your sister, and even though it didn't work out, I did care for her and we're still friends."
"And you're in love with Galinda," Elphaba said before he could and Boq reddened.
"My point is that even if we're not that close, I care for you and everyone else you care for. You needed someone to come with you, and I know why it couldn't be anyone else. So, I'm here."
Elphaba smiled at his explanation. "Well, thank you," she said sincerely. "I kept thinking that I could do this on my own, but I really don't know if I could have. And the others... I love them all, but I couldn't ask them to do this," she admitted.
"They're all going to take it hard," Boq said knowingly. "Not that it was easy for me," he added hastily, but Elphaba just chuckled.
"I know. If it was them here... I don't know whether I'd fall apart or whether I wouldn't because I'd be too busy comforting them before I'd gotten all the information and processed it."
She laughed slightly with a sigh. "They're going to be so mad I kept it from them."
"Yes," Boq acknowledged. "But they'll understand why you did."
Elphaba hoped so.