“It’s fine,” she says in a tiny voice. “I was just kidding.”
“Yeah?” I ask, doing my best to hide the fact that I can see, hear, and feel her deepening realization that’s she’s just that sick.
“Yeah,” she says. “I mean what kind of freak breaks into an old scrapyard of amusement park rides to climb to the top of the Ferris wheel? Of course I’m joking.”
“I meant what I said,” I tell her. “In a couple of weeks, before your next round, I’ll come back here with you and we’ll make it to that top car together, okay?”
“You’re not listening to me,” she says coldly. “I told you that I was making a joke. I’m obviously too weak to do that now, and even if I wasn’t, it would be a monumentally stupid idea, anyway. Can we just go?”
“There’s other stuff we can find,” I tell her. “We just got here.”
“It’s getting late,” she says. “I’m getting tired. That chemo just drags it out of you, doesn’t it?”
“Okay,” I tell her, “I’ll take you home, then.”
I did the right thing, and I know that. Even she knows that, but it doesn’t change the fact that what’s going on in her body just became a whole lot more real than it ever was before.
As a doctor, this is an important thing, though rarely a pleasant experience for anyone involved. False hope only leads to a harder crash, and as tempting as it can be to let a person think they’re doing better than they are or that their treatment isn’t taking as much out of them as they’d like to believe, the right thing to do is be straightforward and take the hit sooner.
It’s better in the long run.
But it’s in this moment that I realize that I’ve been doing the same thing that Grace wanted to do in climbing to the top of that Ferris wheel. I’ve been pretending that it’s still okay that I’m her doctor — that the friendship we’re developing or whatever else it may turn into down the road isn’t going to affect my judgment when it comes to her treatment.
Today, I received a gr
oup email from the dean of medicine at the hospital regarding a new clinical trial, and I already know that I’m going to sign her up for it. That wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t for the fact that the trial is specifically for oligodendroglioma patients who have lived with the diagnosis or are otherwise known to have had the condition for at least five years, for whom chemo and radiation have had little to no impact.
I told myself I’d just be taking my first step back toward being true to myself, doing what I know to be right regardless of how it looks to others. Now, though, it’s starting to set in that my growing affection for Grace, this patient of mine, has just put me in a position to lose my job, possibly my license to practice medicine.
Administrators don’t look too kindly on falsifying medical records to get a patient into a trial, and that’s what I’m going to have to do to make it happen.
Still, though, as I catch up to her, trying to cheer her up, I know the damage is already done. I can’t stand to see that look on her face again, and I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure I don’t have to.
“Grace,” I start, “there’s something I need to tell you.”
Chapter Nine
Under the Radar
Grace
It’s been a week since Jace told me about the clinical trial.
At first, I was just thrilled that there might be something that could change the course of the rest of my life, but once he let slip what he would have to do to get me in, I tried to back out of it.
I know what kind of a risk he’s taking in doing what he’s doing, but he had a point when he told me that while chemo may extend my life, though there are no guarantees on even that; without some other intervening factor, chances are I’ve already lived more than half my life.
That’s a hell of a motivator.
He’s coming over tonight and we’re going to go over the kinds of things I’m going to have to know when I give “my history” to the doctors running the trial.
Right now, Yuri’s here, keeping me company.
We’ve gotten pretty close over the last while, and it’s nice to have someone who’s not an employee to share my thoughts and feelings with. It helps that she’s almost as crazy as I am.
“So, are you going to go through with it?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I think I have to. I know it’s a risk for the doc, but with my life actually hanging in the balance-”