Welcome back! I have to say that I am impressed. I had 14 reviews the day after I posted. The 15th came two days later.
And I will not update until I have 15 more. Haha!
Enjoy!
Disclaimer- I do not own Percy Jackson. If I did, the Blood of Olympus would be out already *ahem, ahem, Rick Riordan*.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Percy's mind reeled.
Cancer?
And then, a thousand questions.
He channeled his inner Annabeth and cleared his mind. He looked up at the doctor, who was watching him uncomfortably.
"What kind?" he asked.
"Osteosarcoma," said the doctor. "Stage Two."
"Osteo-who? What does that mean? Arm cancer? And what is this Stage Two? How many stages are there? Can you get rid of it? Will I have an arm when it's over? What's the treatment?"
And finally, as the flow of questions slowed to a trickle and finally stopped, he found one last question unsaid.
"Am I going to die?"
"Osteosarcoma is a bone cancer," said Doctor Maddox. "It's most common in kids and growing teens. It can be treated. We can take out sections of bone, and Stage Two just refers to how far along it is. It's worse than Stage One, but way better than Stages Three and Four. Generally, with Stage Four, there's no going back. You're not very far. Treatable."
"Treatable," Percy repeated quietly. He had just found another issue- besides for the fact that he could die, and that Riptide could do nothing to help him here. "I don't come from a very well-off family, if you know what I mean."
"We'll work something out," he said. "Well, if you decide to use me as your doctor. I won't be insulted if you choose someone else. You'll also need an oncologist. I don't know cancer, I know bones. I can recommend a few people if you want. We'll work with my secretary. There are organizations that are just for this. Besides, my first concern is getting you into remission. We can deal with money issues later."
Percy smiled thankfully at the doctor, but it vanished as he remembered his situation.
"Treatable how?" he asked.
"Chemotherapy, probably. Maybe radiation. For sure we will have to go in and take what cancer we can out of your arm, in which case you might not need radiation, but I want you to be prepared. And remember, cancer is not my specialty. I don't know…"
Percy opened his mouth to ask yet another question, but the doctor had gotten up and was rummaging through a file cabinet.
"Here," the doctor said, pulling out a thin folder. It was one of the kinds without pockets that you'd just use to keep stuff separate from everything else. P. Jackson was written on the tab in black Sharpie. The doctor opened the file and took out an X-ray.
"I didn't take an X-ray here," said Percy, puzzled.
The doctor laughed, and it was such a strange sound- a sound of happiness amidst confusion and bad news. "This isn't yours. It's just an X-ray of some random, generic humerus. I'm going to draw on it, see if I can help you understand."
He took out a maroon Sharpie and drew a lump on the upper side of the bone.
"Cancer," he intoned. "Tumor. Able to be removed through surgery."
Next he drew little dots leading away from the tumor.
"It's spreading," he said. "That's the chemo's job. It will go in there and flush away mostly everything that needs to be gotten rid of. Kill those guys, cut out the mess, and boom, you're healed."
He made it sound so easy. "Minus what body parts?"
"Some or all of your arm, depending," he said. "We do have to go in. I know enough about chemo to tell you that it will not get rid of it all. Your immune system's going to be low, and you'll have some hair to regrow."
"You sound pretty sure I'll live."
The doctor sighed. "There's no way of knowing."
Review Responses:
Percabeth the Potterjay: Yes sir! Thanks!
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AlphaOmega314: Thank you. What about in History? I can't stand History. Too many dates. Unfortunately, it's all straightforward memorizing, so I get As.
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Guava: Thanks. Your review made me feel really good. So many times I have seen stories with poor grammar, and it drives me berserk! What words do I repeat?
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