“I don’t know, but maybe we can have answers. I’ll explain everything later. It’s probably nothing, but she asked me to be with her and I can’t deny her.”
“Go do what you have. Vote’s at nine tonight.”
“I’ll try,” Lincoln said as he swung his leather on and hurried after his wife. He hopped behind the wheel of the truck, and asked gently, “Where to?”
She gave him the address and they arrived in twenty minutes. With her hand in his, he helped her into the office and sat her down as he went to the receptionist. She opened the sliding door and frowned at him.
“Can I help you?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Murphy to see the doctor.”
“One moment.” She closed the door, got to her feet and left. Lincoln joined his wife and held her hand as she continued to tremble.
“Mr. and Mrs. Murphy,” came a voice, and they looked up and saw a nurse standing there. Lincoln helped Addison to her feet and followed the nurse. They were led into an office, and the nurse said, “The doctor will be right with you.”
After the nurse left, Lincoln moved his chair closer to Addison’s, thankful there were no arms on them. He put his arm around her and rubbed his hand up and down her arm. He was whispering to her, he had no idea what he said, but it seemed to calm her. She was sitting as stiff as a board, gripped his hand tightly, staring into space.
The door opened and two doctors walked in, and one sat behind his desk while the other leaned against the table behind him.
“Mrs. Murphy. Thank you for coming in so soon,” the doctor behind the desk said. He looked at Lincoln and frowned. “And you are?”
“Mr. Murphy. I’m Addison’s husband.” Lincoln held out his hand.
“Oh, I’m Dr. King. And this is Dr. Knight. Mrs. Murphy, we’ve viewed your original tests and the ones we had you redo. They were redone because they were blurry and we wanted to get a clear picture,” he said to Lincoln, by way of explanation.
“The tests from the pap came back normal, so everything in that department is fine.” He looked at Dr. Knight and nodded. “There’s no easy way to say this, but we believe you have a tumor in each breast. Dr. Knight is an oncologist and he’ll be taking over from here. Dr. Knight.”
“Do you know what I do?” Dr. Knight asked.
“Yes,” Addison said through cold, stiff lips. “Do I have breast cancer?”
“We won’t know the answer to that until we do a biopsy. Here are the films from your first mammogram from three weeks ago.” He flipped on a light and Lincoln and Addison stood and went to get a closer look. “As you can see, the whole thing is fuzzy. This is the right breast, and this is the left. Now these are the ones you had three days ago.” He took the fuzzy ones down and put up two more.
“As you can see, there is a mass on the right. The one on the left is slightly smaller. I need to go in and take a biopsy of each mass.”
“When?” Lincoln barked out, and tightened his arm around Addison when she sagged against him. His only saving grace from ripping the room apart was that Addison had come to himin her time of need. He made a vow, not only as her husband, but as the man that loved her with his entire being that he would be there for her no matter what was to come. He not only owed it to her, but he had made the vow of sickness and health, so he was ready to step up to the plate and see it through.
“I’d like her to go to the hospital from here and get checked in.” Dr. Knight looked between the two of them and saw that what he was saying wouldn’t register with Mrs. Murphy, so he turned all his attention to Mr. Murphy. “She’ll have to get some blood work done and I’ve already scheduled an OR for seven tomorrow morning. I’ll do a biopsy on each mass, and unfortunately, Mrs. Murphy will have to stay in the hospital until we get the results. Which should be between twenty-four and forty-eight hours. I will make sure I put a rush on it when it gets to the lab.”
“Why?” Addison asked.
“Don’t sugarcoat anything, Doctor. We can handle it. Tell us everything now.”
“First, I don’t know everything yet. But once we get the results from the biopsy and if it is cancer, then I’m going to want to get in there and remove the tumor. Now this is the worst-case scenario, but I’d remove both tumors, possibly both breasts. When she heals from that, then we’ll begin an aggressive round of chemo.”
“Best case scenario?” Lincoln asked through gritted teeth.
“The biopsy comes back not cancer and we remove the mass or keep a close eye on it. We can give her medication to dissolve it.”
“NO!” Addison yelled and began trembling even harder than before. Lincoln helped her to her chair.
“I can’t go through that again.” Lincoln looked at the doctors and frowned.
Dr. King got on his haunches and took Addison’s cold hands in his. “Mrs. Murphy. Addy, dissolving the mass won’t be like what you had to go through with the baby. But if it turns out to be not cancerous, then I’m sure Dr. Knight can cut it out, without removing your breast.”
“I’m not worried about that, I can always get fake tits in the future, but I can’t go through what I did with the miscarriage.”
Lincoln saw the doctors talking and he listened intently, and hugged Addison to him tighter. “So, you want us to go to the hospital and get checked in, you’ll do blood work and she’ll have surgery at seven in the morning.”
