Unexpected Love (Editing)

Chapter 34

Liliana's pov

"Eight surgeons have said this is inoperable, even the tumor board at Cleveland clinic." I say as Derek and I look at the scans of a huge tumor. For the past month Derek and I have been operating on risky tumors, that most doctors wouldn't go near. That probably wasn't the best idea for me considering I need to avoid bad outcomes, but what can I say? I'm a tumor junkie and fortunately I'm still at zero bad outcomes.

"Well I can see why. Catch." Derek says before throwing me a quarter.

"What's this for?" I frown.

"Heads we do it, tails we don't." He smiles.

"You're insane, we cannot just let a coin decide if we operate on this tumor."

"It's a gut check, I get a feeling when it's in the air, what I want it to land on. Flip it." He smirks, before I flip the coin into the air and catch it, it lands on heads meaning we're doing the surgery. We look over the scans for a little while longer before going to talk to the patients mother since he's a minor.

"His neuroblastoma is more complicated than most we've seen. It's very rare that someone has age..." I say.

"They're mostly in younger kids, I know." His mom says.

"It's in a very large region of his spine." Derek says.

"There is the very likely risk of paralysis." I say.

"From his upper body down, there's also the risk of death, a death that he is gonna meet in three months anyways if you don't do surgery. I understand the risk. The surgeon in Boston compared it to dismantling a bomb with your eyes closed and the one in Chicago said it was patching a dam with gum, so what I want to know is if you two are gonna say anything different or do I have to take my kid somewhere else?" She asks.

"There's only a 5 percent chance of success, maybe a little less, but if you're willing we'll try." Derek says causing her to hug both of us.

"Okay, should we go tell Wes?" I ask.

"Wait there's something else. He doesn't know about this tumor. He's 11 and knowing that he's very likely gonna die is not something that's gonna do him any good." She says.

"Why does he think he's here?" I ask.

"A backache, a very bad backache." She says. We go into the room and examine our patient before I take him to get some X-Rays. After finishing his X-Rays I help him back into his wheelchair.

"Did the tumor grow more?" He asks me.

"What did you say?" I frown.

"I know what I have. I overheard some doctors talking about it at the last hospital. I didn't tell my mom that I know, she'd just freak out."

"She's your mom, she needs to know." I say.

"She cries in the bathroom, she cries at night, she cries in the morning when she thinks I'm not awake yet, she cries all the time and the only thing that makes her happy is to think that I don't know. You can't tell her. If I'm happy, she's happy." He says.

"Okay, I won't tell her." I sigh.

"You're not lying?" He asks.

"I'm not lying." I say making him smile.

"Do you think I'm gonna die?" He asks me.

"Dr. Shepherd and I have worked together on some tough cases, you and your mom couldn't ask for a better duo to help you." I assure him, before taking him back to his room, then I go to residents lounge where Alex, April, and Jackson are eating and grab my lunch before sitting by Jackson.