disc. fuck you for pushing back O.C.'s release date, Wolf. Maybe I should own these characters.
important a/n: mkay, so, here's the dealio. the next four chapters (this included) are linked together. Almost like a mini-series inside of the series? lmao. so this is Desolation I, the next will be Desolation II, and so on. This chapter in particular is more on the medical side of things, and though it might be more boring, it will lead up to the next three chapters in an important way. also, keep your eyes peeled for a new project coming soon that the twitter EOluminati [tm] has talked me into lmaoo.
Chapter Twenty - Desolation I
She stared at the familiar mahogany desk in front of her. She always liked to drag her vision along the carven lines and the intricate embellishments. In fact, she always found herself focused on them, rather than the rest of the room that still had medical equipment scattered around. The lightboxes and the reserved x-ray prints that were left from the last patient.
This time, the x-ray looked like a leg bone, and she makes a mental note of that.
She knew why she was here. She knew it had to be done. Even while she was still in the thick of fertility injections, she still had to pay some focus to what had led her here in the first place, and what she was going to do about it.
No imaging, no x-rays or ultrasounds, no tests. She was here for words. Braving the one thing she was scared the most of throughout this entire journey. The words she would never be able to un-hear. The logistical side of it all.
The attack plan she hadn't made yet.
In just a few days, she'd be forced to swing from one world to another. No more staving it off with the grasp of a dream. No more pretending, so blissfully pretending that she was bypassing a horror to get to the promise land.
Every soldier needs carefully laid plans of how they will go forth into war.
At least she found humor in it. She wasn't preparing an attack from some hidden barracks, she wasn't reading some confidential file about how she planned to win a battle. She was sitting across from a desk, forcing the moment to be as anti-climactic as possible. So simple, it was just going to be spoken words.
Promises that she would be forced to keep. A plan set in stone, no running. No escape. But she had to plan at some point, and the time that divided her from now until then was wearing thin.
"Sorry, my last patient's surgery ran a little longer than expected." Doctor Keller announced as he quickly rushed into his office.
She wasn't in a hurry. If he had told her that they'd need to reschedule because he was too busy, she would've run from the room without any protest. But she was here, waiting and wondering.
The clouds part, allowing a sliver of light to fall through the window and blanket itself upon them. It feels all too incredibly inappropriate, she isn't supposed to believe in the sun coming out. At least, not right now she isn't. She doesn't want the warmth on her skin or the light in her eyes. She wants the cold and the lonely dreck. She isn't supposed to want the darkness, but yet again, she wasn't supposed to have cancer either. Having hope was overrated... but losing it, well that was much worse.
Getting stuck between having hope and losing hope, that was where the agony was. The undecided vote, the winner takes it all. On the edge of her goddamn seat because she can't decide whether or not she wants to live in pain or die in peace. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both. Her mother was a fucking literature professor for God's sake. Robert Frost would forever be ingrained into her mind.
She could practically hear her mother right now. 'Which road, Olivia?'
Some days she wants the light. Some days, she could be given the option to wither under its glare and she would make that choice without hesitance.
Some days were diamonds.
"How are the IVF injections going?"
Some days are stone.
"They're going well," she answers, monotone and as convincing as she could possibly be given the circumstances. Sure, her body was bruised to hell and the hot flashes practically left her in tears, but she wasn't dead yet.
She wanted a family, but as the days lingered on, she started to question her intentions with the choice she had made. She'd rather cover her ears and scream than to admit that Elliot had a point when he said that she could always adopt. Maybe it was because IVF was the only excuse she had to actually postpone the reality of her situation.
She was losing sight of her reasoning and she hated it. Too many conflicting voices telling her every right and wrong decision she was making and why she was making them. Some women didn't want children and that's okay, but she did want children. At the very least, she wanted the chance to be reserved.
He sighed, folding his arms in front of himself on the desk. "We have to talk about your treatment plan." Shocker. She was losing energy faster than she could make it and pretty much all she wanted to contribute to the conversation was a yes or no answer about whatever he was going to tell her she needed to do.
"We have a few different options in front of us, which is good news."
Good news. Please. She'd said it before and she'd say it again, there was no such thing as good news right now. What she had was scenarios, best case amongst the worst case. She bit her tongue and stayed silent, nodding when the moment called for it and listening with a fraction of her attention. She knew it was an insolent way of behaving, but quite frankly, she didn't care.
"A lot of patients with this type of cancer, or any breast cancer for that matter, choose to do a mastectomy. Either single or double, it usually depends on how severe the cancer is and if it's localized enough."
Would it be rude to close her eyes? She could just let him say whatever it is he was supposed to say and she could just be there as a witness. No. That was dumb. She needed to listen.
"But, usually when we perform mastectomies, we still recommend a round of radiation and chemotherapy, post-op. That way we know we've done everything we can to eliminate any traces of malignant cells."
The sunlight that had shone through the window was gone, and she was starting to regret taking it for granted. Each word he spoke came with a new shade of darkness as the sun fell behind a cloud.
"In other cases, we do a less invasive surgery by removing the tumors, which we also almost always follow with radiation and chemotherapy. It's a bit more difficult with Ductal Carcinoma since it grows less like a tumor and more like scattered cells, but it isn't impossible."
Great, more optimism.
Each word felt like a brick being thrown in her direction, bracing herself for the next impact. The faster he could give her the options, the faster this would be over. One blow after another and she could barely stop herself from gripping the edge of the seat.
Never once had she ever thought that the mutilation of her body would be a conversation she'd be having. Which direction to slice the scalpel in, how much of herself to cut away.
But it wasn't herself. It used to be. She understood how cancer worked. It was good cells morphing into bad cells. It wasn't always a golf ball growing into the size of a baseball. Sometimes it was spiderwebs, spreading, not growing. One cell didn't grow larger, the cells around it turned over and changed alongside it.
All of those cells once belonged to her.
"The less common option would be chemotherapy and radiation alone. It's less likely to work as well. It's more strenuous on your body because it really has no assistance without surgery."
Pick a card, any card.
She felt a wave of nausea run through her and for no other reason other than the fact that she was overwhelmed. Could she let go now? Were the bombs going to continue to drop? Would she have to keep taking cover until he said his piece?
It was futile to fight off the urge to shut her eyes. She didn't like to make life-changing decisions when she could still see her current life around her. At least if she closed her eyes and saw nothing but the darkness behind her eyelids, she could imagine the outcome of her choice.
"And... in your professional opinion?" she asked, voice cracking as she physically forced the words out. Another bomb, take cover. Hide under the table, close your eyes, count your breaths but don't breathe too much or too fast. One more stone would be turned, one more moment she could never go back from.
"In my professional opinion..." he stopped, blowing air through his lips as if this was just as hard for him as it was for her. "I almost always would recommend a mastectomy. Especially if my patient ends up testing positive for HBOC."
She rolled her eyes behind her closed lids. "You're speaking greek to me, Doc. What's HBOC?"
"Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Syndrome. We often test two genes for mutations, BRCA1 and BRCA2, in most cases when a patient tests positive for either gene mutation, they have a much higher risk for developing breast and ovarian cancers. It helps us in the long run, especially when we aren't very familiar with a... patient's family history."
"She's got the right idea, leave the father's side blank. That'll mess 'em up."
Fuckin' Munch. Ah, he didn't know any better.
She heard the decline in Keller's tone. He'd spoken too fast, too quick to recognize when he should start walking on eggshells. He knew the gist of her background, or lack of. Even now, having found Simon and figuring out what she could about who the other 50% of her was, she'd never know the entire truth. She'd never know which aunts or cousins or grandparents had been sitting in the same chair, talking about options as if they were orders on a take out menu.
"Have I been tested?" she asked, cautiously awaiting for another bombshell. Who would've ever thought she'd learn more about herself in the middle of a cancer institute rather than a family photobook?
"We're still waiting on the results. But... if you don't want to do a mastectomy, that is your choice, Olivia. We can go in and remove as much of the cancer as we can and go from there. The difference is that if you do end up testing positive for the gene mutations, it also raises the likelihood of the cancer returning."
She gulped away the threat of building tears. "You've looked at my scans," her voice was thick as she sniffed away as much of her visible emotions as possible. Her brows furrowed, and her eyes were pulled back down to the engravings on the desk. "Do you have any confidence that a lumpectomy would be worth pursuing instead of a mastectomy?"
God, who was she? Why was she having this conversation? When the hell did the world turn upside down and when did this become so normal to her. It hurt, it hurt like hell. But it was becoming normal and that scared her almost more than the entire idea of cancer.
She knew what she was asking. She was asking him just how much of herself would need to be lobbed off in order to give herself a fighting chance. She'd been defiant before, begging to postpone everything for IVF, against all recommendation. She had known that waiting was her one and only 'get out of jail free' card. Whatever came after that, she'd need to listen to.
How much of myself do I need to lose?
She didn't want to wake up with bandages on her chest and the weight of the world replacing the weight that she was used to. It sounded naïve, even in her own head, it sounded almost selfish. But she also didn't want to sacrifice a part of herself if she didn't have to.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by.
"I think that choosing the route of a lumpectomy versus mastectomy could be worth it." he said in a near whisper. "If your genetics screening comes back normal and your risk for relapse drops dramatically following, then it's worth trying to save what tissue we can."
She'd taken the sunlight for granted and now it was gone and she was cold. She'd taken a lot for granted.
"So..." she whispered with a breath. Her eyes finally stayed open long enough to stare sadly at him from across the mahogany desk with the engravings that she loved so much. "We do surgery, then follow it with chemotherapy and radiation?"
Plans were plans, she'd need them no matter what. Postponing plans never meant ending them. It never meant turning them away entirely. It was a pause. But with every pause came a resumption.
He was knocking on her door and even if she hadn't been expecting him, she would've recognized the sound of his fist on the door. She opened to see him with a soft smile and a case of beer in his hand.
Wordlessly, he breezed past her as he let himself into the apartment. Though it was the strangest circumstance, it was becoming a ritual. Even in the turmoil of the day she had experienced, she allowed herself to gently smile as she closed the door behind him.
He did what he always did now; he walked past her, set their drinks down, and made his way over to the station she had set up on the counter of the kitchen island. He knew why he was there, she knew why he was there, it didn't need to be said.
When she turned back around to see him, he was spinning on his heel to face her. The syringe in his hand ejected droplets of medication as he flicked the bubbles out of the tube. Ever since he had become her designated nurse, he'd acted as if it were his job. He'd crack a joke each time, knowing it was dumb and childish but that it made her smile.
"Whadd'ya say, huh? Ready to make a baby?" he chuckled, his eyes softening as he did so.
She cringed but she laughed, just as she always did. At least it wasn't his usual variation of a 'knock knock, who's there, Ben, Ben who, Ben Dover' joke. But even though he looked at her with that big, goofy grin while he held her liquid gold in his hands, and she hated that she'd have to tell him all about her treatment plan, she still smiled at him. She soaked in the moment that was less than three seconds and just watched.
I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
