“Do they live here?”
I shake my head. “Two are in Chicago. One’s in Memphis.”
“You may want to give them a call. I’ll need someone to make decisions if need be.”
I’m frightened by his words. “What do you think is wrong?”
“It’s too early to tell. I’ll have to get CT scans to know for sure.”
“But do you have an idea?”
“It could be any number of things. But she’s in quite a bit of pain. How long has she been like this?”
“I was at her house last night. She wasn’t nearly this bad off. She was weak, but she was talking, and could get a few bites of her supper down.”
“I’ll get her started on an intravenous pain medication right away.”
“She’s been taking oxycodone. Twenty milligrams.”
“Do you know when she had the last dose?”
“No, sir. Just found out about it last night. She’s so stubborn. Never even told me she was sick.”
He smiles. “I promise to let you know something as soon as I get the tests back.” He steps toward the curtain, then turns back around. “By the way, does your aunt have a living will?”
My brows knit together. I’m not exactly sure what he means.
“A DNR. Her wishes on whether or not to resuscitate.”
Now my eyes bulge. “Of course she wants to be resuscitated.”
“Okay, just making sure.” He smiles again, opens the curtain.
“Doctor?”
He turns.
“Is it cancer?”
He squeezes his lips together. “Like I said, I’m ordering several tests. We’ll know then.”
“But, is it possible?”
He gives a slight nod. “There’s a possibility.”
***
Auntie was moved to a private room on the third floor at Northwest Regional Baptist Hospital. It was the last thing we expected for someone with no health insurance, but that’s what we got. The doctor ordered she be hooked up to a morphine drip. She’s hardly woken since, but when she does, the moaning begins. It comes up from her gut and sounds more like an animal than a human.
Now, for the first time in eleven hours, she seems to be at peace. I’m anything but peaceful. Another doctor, Dr. Thomas, brought me the news thirty minutes ago. Aunt Fee has stage four, terminal uterine cancer. The CT scan showed it was not only smothering her uterus, but it had grown over her entire abdomen—in her ovaries, stomach, intestines, and, more important, herliver. “That’s why she’s in excruciating pain,” he said. “The cancer has invaded her liver.”
When I asked him how long she had, he said it was up to God. There’s a chair in the room that folds out into a nice bed. I’ve put my name on it. Someone needs to be here, and that someone is me.
Her hand is in mine when I hear a creak in the door. I look over to see it opening real slow. There stands Mr. Marvelle. Seems like he’s afraid to come any closer. He simply stays in the doorway, peering over at Aunt Fee in the bed.
“Come on in, Marvelle,” I say.
It must take that man an entire minute to walk the five feet up to Fee’s bedside. I go around and take him by his wrinkled hand, cold to the touch. His other grips a handkerchief.
