The Legend's Gate: Book I The Journal of Samuel Wallace

Chapter 2 - Secrets

Several days later found me at Dr. Allen's office, sitting once again on his examination table. His attitude was again on the professional side, still not like his typical self.
"Sam, we've known each other for many years, so I'm going to get straight to the point. It looks like you may have cancer in your stomach and looking at the ultrasound results, it may have spread to other parts of your body. We'll have you scheduled for a colonoscopy to see if this has spread to your colon. I'm surprised you haven't seen any signs, but sometimes this happens."
There it was. Dr. Allen chose to rip off the Band-Aid quickly, rather than work me into the diagnosis. Nonetheless, I started to faint, and Dr. Allen quickly laid me down on the examination table.
The tears were streaming down my face. Dr. Allen continued once the tears had slowed. "It may be operable, and there are new treatments that weren't around 20 years ago. I'd like you to call a good friend of mine who is a specialist with people with your condition."
My condition? And then there were more soothing words, but they all added up to one thing: I was going to die soon.
I didn't remember walking out of the waiting room past waiting people. I didn't remember walking out the door.
The drive home was a blur. I kept thinking about the burdens that I would leave my family.
In recent years, I hadn't been there for my family when it came to moral support, but I had always been there for advice and did my best to support everyone financially. And I was always there to cheer them on at sporting events and often helped out with scouting.
Even so, I knew this would be hard for them.
I had always dreamed of growing old with my wife, and one day enjoying our grandchildren. Now this.
Once home, I cleaned up and made dinner for everyone.
Dinner was a quiet affair. The anger kept welling up inside my head. The whole situation was unfair. I kept thinking Dr. Allen should have caught this at my last six-month physical. I always thought he was getting too old to be a doctor.
Then I had it. I would get another opinion. Sure, I thought. It's quite often you read in the paper about the errors physicians make.
A firm plan in place, I was able to fall asleep quickly, my last thoughts were that I would hold off saying anything until I was able to get a second opinion.
Had I paid attention to the stages of dying in college psychology class, I'd know I'd already gone through Denial, Anger, and Depression all in one day.
There weren't too many stages left on the list.