I should point out, I'm not a doctor and have no medical knowledge. As such, I'm going to try and keep away from the specifics and cannot guarantee the factual accuracy of the treatment etc. Where necessary, I will do my research and try to make sure it's right, but this isn't a medical documentary and a little artistic license will be used where needed.
x X x
Catherine's whole body felt like it had been encased in lead, but somehow she managed to move her legs towards the room. Creeping through the open door, she walked autonomously to the bed, her gaze tracking up Sara's body and following the IV to a drip feeding into her right arm.
She was wearing street-clothes, but had a blanket draped over her legs and a magazine tucked underneath her which she had evidently been reading before she dozed off. Her breathing was even and steady, but there was a small frown on her face, as if she were in some discomfort.
Catherine caught a noise behind her and glanced over her shoulder, to where her sister was now loitering in the doorway.
"Why is she here?" The question was barely spoken, almost breathed, as if her voice hadn't quite recovered from the shock yet.
"It's an oncology unit, Catherine." Nancy noted softly, coming into the room. "Why do you think she's here?"
"No." Cath shook her head sadly, her gaze settling on Sara's face again. She placed a hand over her mouth, sniffing back the tears which had suddenly sprung to the corners of her eyes. "No, this can't be right."
A thought suddenly struck her and she whirled towards her sister, who was busying herself reading Sara's notes.
"Is this why you called me down here?" She asked. "Why you needed that uniform so urgently?"
Nancy flicked her eyes up over the top of the clipboard, a devious little smile creeping onto her lips in a silent admission.
Catherine turned back to Sara, who remained blissfully oblivious to their presence in the room. Reaching out a shaky hand, she let her fingertips graze the young woman's wrist where it lay on the mattress. Sara curled her hand up into a fist at the contact, but otherwise remained still and settled in the sandman's embrace.
"What's wrong with her?"
"I can't tell you that." Nancy replied instantly, earning her a pleading look.
"Come on Nance, you can't call me down here and then not tell me anything."
"Hey, all I did was ask you to bring me my uniform." The nurse said pointedly. "You found her on your own."
"Yeah, because you left me stood outside her room with the door open."
"Coincidence." Nancy deflected easily. "But I can't break patient confidentiality. If you want to know what's wrong, you'll have to hear it from her."
Cath looked down her at her slumbering colleague.
"You really want me to wake her up?" She challenged, keeping her voice low. Nancy sighed, shaking her head.
"Cath, you know I can't tell you."
Fed up of arguing with her little sister, Catherine decided to take matters into her own hands –literally. She plucked the clipboard out of Nancy's grip, despite her protestations, and scanned down the first page.
"Hodgkin Lymphoma." She read, looking up. "What is that?"
"It's a form of blood cancer." Nancy explained, snatching her board back. "It attacks the white blood cells."
"Blood cancer." Catherine echoed, seeking out the IV in Sara's arm again as she swallowed hard around the lump in her throat. "But, it's obviously treatable, right?"
"Yes, if we catch it in time." Nancy answered carefully, scribbling her initials on the file and sliding it back into the slot at the end of the bed. Catherine picked up on the nuance in her voice and sought out her reluctant gaze.
"And, have you? Caught it in time?"
The younger sibling exhaled, resting her hands on the end of the bed.
"We don't know." She replied honestly. "This isn't like a lot of other cancers where you can remove the tumour and kill off the remaining cells. The cancer is in her blood; that means it's all over her body. She's on a course of immunotherapy for twelve weeks, after which we'll do some more tests and see whether it's had any impact."
"And if it hasn't?"
"Then we may have to consider other options. Chemo, radiotherapy." Nancy explained, offering a small shrug. "Perhaps both."
"Can't you do both now? Wouldn't that be more effective?" The CSI pressed.
"In a lot of cases, yes. Sara was offered a course of chemo before starting the immunotherapy, but she declined."
Catherine blinked, surprised by this news. Sara was young and otherwise healthy; it didn't make sense that she would turn down the best option at her disposal. Staring down at her sleeping colleague, she shook her head in confusion.
"Why would she do that?" It was really a rhetorical question, but one that Nancy answered anyway.
"She didn't want her friends to know that she was sick." She said bluntly, causing Catherine's head to whip up again. "Chemo makes it hard to hide."
Catherine opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, struggling to find the right words.
"Why wouldn't she tell us this?" She managed to ask at last, her voice cracking with emotion. "Why wouldn't she want us to know? How could she even think she could hide it from us, that we wouldn't notice?"
"I can't answer that." Nancy pointed out, softening her tone. "You'll have to take that up with her. But I can tell you that she's going to need some support to deal with this."
Catherine nodded absently, dragging her eyes over the girl's body. Aside from the IV in her arm, she looked fairly at peace.
"What's her prognosis?"
"Hard to say at this time." Nancy shrugged. "If managed properly, many patients recover fully and go on to live perfectly healthy lives; but it's difficult to know how the treatment is working at the time. After this course of treatment is finished, we'll reassess the situation and take it from there."
"And what if the treatment doesn't work?" Cath whispered meekly. "What then?"
"She'll have a choice to make. She can elect to have a course of more aggressive treatment, which could have more of an impact, but which will probably make her very sick in the meantime..."
"Or?" Catherine stared at her through tear-laden blue eyes. Nancy held her gaze, a sadness clouding over her face.
"Or, she can stop treatment and accept palliative care."
Catherine felt herself physically jolt and clamped a hand over her mouth, sinking backwards onto the edge of the mattress. Nancy instantly felt a pang of guilt at how that must have sounded. Working in a cancer unit, it was sometimes easy to forget how much of an impact those words could have on others, no matter how carefully they were delivered.
"Hey, this is only her first treatment session." She pointed out, reaching forward to grab her sister by her shoulders, supporting Cath's weight as she struggled to suck air into her lungs through the sobs trying to fight their way out. "Everything is still speculative at this point."
Catherine didn't even appear to have heard her anyway. She had turned to stare at Sara's face again, studying it desperately through a watery glaze.
"Why didn't she tell me?" She hiccupped, reaching out to touch Sara's hair gently where it lay splayed across the pillow.
"A lot of people try to protect those around them from having to deal with it." Nancy explained, tentatively releasing Cath and straightening up. "They think they can handle it alone, but they can't. Aside from her fortnightly IV treatments, she's going to have blood tests and regular check-ups, up to six different medications to take throughout the day, all at different times of the day and the side-effects are going to take a toll on her."
Catherine was staring at her now with a look of bewilderment on her flushed face. She had never seen her baby sister in work-mode before. It was impressive, and a little bit scary.
Composing herself a little, she shifted her weight on the bed to better face Sara.
"Sounds like she's in for a pretty rough few months."
"Months would be a positive result. It could be years." Nancy shrugged. "Hard to say at this time just how long it could take."
When Catherine didn't respond, she cleared her throat.
"Hey, I need to get back to my rounds. Are you going to be alright?"
Cath nodded slowly, never tearing her gaze from the patient.
"Can I stay with her?" She asked hoarsely. Her hand had found its way to Sara's right arm and she was delicately dancing her fingers towards the IV, never quite touching it.
Nancy smiled, squeezing her shoulder gently before making her way to the door.
"Why do you think I called you down here?" She half-joked. "Although when she wakes up and asks why you're here, do me a favour and keep my name out of it."