nothing lasts forever
let that be the reason you stay
even this sick twisted misery
will not last
What's worse, not knowing the question or not knowing the answer? Ironically, Newt didn't know the answer to that. He supposed that he would rather know the answer to an unknown question. Or rather, he would never have asked the question in the first place. But he got his answer that next day, the answer to a question he never wanted to ask. He was sick.
Some of the most important things he had learned about small cell lung cancer was that, unlike other cancers, this one was more commonly divided into two stages instead of four. Limited stage and extensive stage. Then there was the TNM staging system.
T. How big is the tumor? Has it grown into nearby structures or organs?
N. Has the cancer spread to the lymph nodes?
M. Has the cancer spread to distant organs? Ie., brain, bones, adrenal glands etc.
These were all questions that Newt had no answer to. Not yet. That's what today was for. They were to run any and all tests that they could think of to determine his status. They had rolled them all off to Newt of course, but none of them had any meaning to him. As far as he knew, he was to be poked and prodded and shoved into different machines until they knew Newt's body inside and out. It was a long, exhausting, and painful day for Newt. A day that he just wanted to end.
"Mother's on her way here." Sonya said around mid afternoon. Newt wasn't allowed to have much to eat of course, so Sonya convinced him that she simply wasn't hungry and that's why she had nothing to eat either. But Newt had heard her stomach growling.
"Is that right?" He asked weakly. Because even though he told himself he didn't want her to come, he couldn't help but long for her touch. He felt humiliated in his thin white hospital gown. His ass was out most of the time for one, and it was so thin he was sure that anyone could see his nipples. They may as well be having him carted around naked throughout the place.
"Yeah." Sonya said. Newt wasn't up for much conversation, he would rather curl up in his bed and hope to disappear instead of have casual conversation with his sister just then.
"Cool." Newt pulled that awful thin blanket up to his chin in hopes that it would help hide his small frame. It was a small hope, one that wouldn't come true. He even found himself wishing that Thomas was there too, he always seemed to know how to comfort Newt best. But he had told himself he wouldn't burden Thomas with this kind of thing, and this was a promise to himself that he would keep as long as he was able.
"You have a lot of fight in you, baby brother. And you're young. You can beat this." Sonya said. That was something that he had heard all day long. For once, he wanted someone to tell him the truth. Just once. Because the way he was feeling now, he didn't feel strong.
Newt's head snapped up when he heard someone knock on the door. A male doctor and a nurse in pale blue scrubs walked in the door. They didn't have to speak to know what kind of news the doctor held, he could see it in the frown lines on his mouth and the solemn look on his face.
"So Newt," he said, pulling over a wheeling chair to sit on. The nurse went to his side and fiddled with the machines, wrote some things down on her clipboard, and then stepped back beside the doctor. "The tests we ran today were very informative. As you already know from your biopsy you have something called SCLC, or small cell lung cancer. Now, I know this sounds bad, nobody ever wants to hear that they have cancer. But you are young and strong and that is a good thing." Newt just stared at the man, he was already tired of hearing his dull monotone voice and he just wished he would get to the point.
"What kind of treatment is he going to have to do?" Sonya asked.
"Hold on a minute." The doctor said. "Let me get through to the diagnosis. So, from our tests, we have determined that you are in the limited stage of this, which putting it mildly, is a good thing. It means that your tumors are relative to one lung, but the bad part about that is that it has spread to the lymph nodes. The reason why you're still classified as limited is because it's only on one lymph node. Now, we want to stop this from spreading of course, and keep you out of the extensive stage. That's key here. What I propose is chemotherapy and radiation treatment so we can target those cancer cells and stop them from spreading." The doctor looked better Sonya and Newt, waiting for one of them to respond.
