"Dan, you need to go down to the front office; your mother is here to pick you up for an appointment," Mr. Davids, Dan's English teacher, told him.
Gathering up his things, Dan looked back at the class as he left only to see that literally no one had looked up from their papers. Dan knew he shouldn't have been surprised, but he couldn't help but feel the small pang of loneliness in his chest.
Dan walked to the parking lot and to his mother's car so they could go to the hospital. For the past week or two, Dan had been experiencing excessive stomach and back pains so they were going to the hospital to make sure nothing more was wrong. Dan didn't understand why; he figured he had just tweaked something and it would go back to normal soon.
Dan and his mother arrived at the hospital and sat in the waiting room for nearly an hour.
"Mum," Dan said.
"Yes, Dan?" She replied, bouncing her leg anxiously while looking around.
"Do you know what's wrong with me?"
"No, Dan, I don't. Hopefully it's nothing. We'll find out soon enough."
At that, a doctor came into the waiting room from a door behind the reception desk. "Howell?" He called.
Dan stood up and followed his mother. The doctor smiled at Dan as he walked in.
"I like your shirt," he said.
Dan looked down and gave the doctor a small grin. "You know Muse?"
"I love them," he said, turning to Mrs. Howell. "I'm Doctor Harris. We're going to run a few tests and send the results to specialists who will let us know the verdict later this afternoon."
"Okay," Dan and his mother said in unison.
Doctor Harris smiled. "This should take only about an hour to an hour and a half."
Dan's eyes widened. "That's so long."
"There are multiple tests we need to run," he said sympathetically.
"Okay. When will we start?" Dan was eager only to get away from the musty sent of the hospital and into the comfort of his bed sheets.
"Whenever you're ready."
"I'm ready now."
"Then we better get started."
Doctor Harris lead Dan into a room in the very back with several machines and needles. Dan shivered.
Dan sat in a chair in the middle of the room as they ran tests. The doctors did everything from pulling blood samples to asking simple questions about the pains Dan was having. The whole thing lasted about an hour.
Dan walked back into the waiting room where his mother was seated. Doctor Harris followed.
"You can go ahead and go home for the day. We'll give you a call around 18:00." He said.
"Thank you," Mrs. Howell said and ushered Dan along.
"Bye," Dan said with a small wave and smile to Doctor Harris.
"Bye."
Dan and his mother went home. Dan fell asleep watching anime while Mrs. Howell checked to see if she had received any calls from the hospital every five minutes.
Dan woke around 17:45 with a terrible stomach ache.
"Do you want something to eat?" Dan's mum asked.
"Not right now, my stomach hurts like hell," Dan said and curled into a ball on the couch.
Mrs. Howell sighed. Just then, her phone buzzed with a phone call. She accepted the call and put the caller on speaker phone.
"Hello?" Dan asked.
The sad voice of Doctor Harris was on the other end of the phone. "Hello, Dan. I am so sorry I have to be the one to deliver the news but," he paused for a moment, "you have pancreatic cancer."
There was a silence much heavier than should be possible over phone calls hanging in the room.
Dan was in shock. Cancer? How could he have cancer? He was a teenager. Basically a kid. It was so unlikely that he would have cancer. How could he have cancer?
"What?" Dan said quietly.
Mrs. Howell set the phone on the kitchen table and sat down, burying her head in her arms as sobs racketed her body.
"You have cancer. Pancreatic cancer," Doctor Harris repeated.
"O-okay. Thank you for letting us know," Dan said, assuming the role of maturity since his mother was a wreck.
"Once again, I am so sorry, Dan."
"Yeah. Yeah, thanks," Dan said, ending the call.
Dan sat in the chair across from his weeping mother, still in shock.
Cancer. I have pancreatic cancer. The words still remained foreign to Dan's tongue.
"Mom?" Dan said, placing his hand over his mother's. "Mom, don't cry."
"Why shouldn't I?" She wailed. "You have cancer!"
"Some people survive cancer. I could, too."
She finally picked her head up from her arms, revealing her tear-streaked face. "Do you know anything about pancreatic cancer?"
"No, not really," Dan admitted, "but I was planning on doing a bit of research later tonight."
"Okay, you do that. I'll just- I'll just stay here and wait for Adrian to come back from work," she said quietly through choked sobs.
Dan stood up and hugged his mother. "I'm going to go lay down."
As he began to walk away, she grabbed his hand and kissed it. "I love you."
Dan offered a small smile. "I love you too, Mum."
He slowly made is way to his room and laid down on his bed with his laptop resting on his legs and lower abdomen.
All night, Dan scrolled through article after article on Google, researching this illness he had. He read things from possible treatments to stories of people who had pancreatic cancer. He read everything he could, regardless of whether it applied to him or not. He froze when he came upon one specific statistic.
The 1-year survival rate of people with pancreatic cancer who do not have surgery is 29%, and the 5-year survival rate is 7%.
Dan went numb from head to toe. He closed his laptop and placed it on his desk, then curled up under his duvet. He lay awake for hours that night, pondering what would happen in the coming year or so. After barely an hour of this, he broke down and sobbed. He cried for the better portion of the night, eventually tiring himself into sleep. Even asleep, he knew one thing.
Daniel James Howell was going to die.
Word count: 1060
Wow that started on a sad note. Thank you for reading my first f/phanfiction. Enjoy the rest!
