As springtime wore on, the temperatures rose, and the trees began to dress themselves in the yellow-green of new leaves, the only thing on Phil's mind was Dan's upcoming surgery. He had completed the months of chemotherapy, and now it was time for the surgeon to delve in and take a closer look.
The tumors had shrunk enough to allow for removal, as far as the doctors could tell by the myriad of CT scans, MRIs, PET scans, and X-rays they took in the weeks leading up to the operation. They were cautiously optimistic.
Of course, there were a billion things that could go wrong. Dan was having a rib and a portion of his left lung removed, and something as drastic as that would surely not come without complications. There was a chance that they would be unable to remove all of the cancerous areas, or that the cancer cells had set up camp in some other part of Dan's body where the imaging couldn't detect them. And of course there was also a fairly significant chance that the cancer would come back with a vengeance in the future.
Dan refused to let himself believe that there was any way he'd survive this, but Phil chose to let hope well up inside of him as the day of the surgery approached. Somebody had to be optimistic, to dwell on the chance of a good result. And as usual, that somebody was Phil.
"Are you ready?" Phil asked, giving Dan's hand a squeeze. They were in the preoperative area, the nurses and doctors scurrying around to get all of their last-minute details in order.
"You know I still have only a thirty per cent chance of surviving this, right?" Dan reminded him.
Phil felt a twinge of fear in his gut, but he suppressed it. "Well, in the grand scheme of things, that's true. But in this moment on this day in this room, you have the best surgeon with the best team working on you, and you're going to make it through this surgery and probably feel better afterwards, and whatever happens happens and we'll worry about it when it does. But right now your mission is to have this operation."
"How do you know I have the best surgeon?" Dan asked, his voice small and frightened.
Phil shrugged. "She has pretty hands."
Dan chuckled, a reassuring sound. "Well that settles it, then. I'm ready."