Fan Fiction ❯ Eve's Garden ❯ Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Eve and Michael had been together only four months, yet to them it seemed like four years, or better still, four lifetimes.

After they returned from the camping trip, Michael had developed to get a rash on his legs. He hated doctors, but Eve was concerned that it could be Poison Ivy, so he made an appointment. The appointment went as was to be expected- he was given a blood test and an ointment and sent on his way. But by the time Michael got back to work twenty minutes later, his doctor had already called and left him three messages.

Michael called the doctor back and then called Eve at work, "Evie, I don't know what's going on. I went to my doctor and he gave me a cream for the rash, but now he told me to go home. He said something was wrong with my blood. The platelets, the stuff that makes it clot, is messed up and if get cut, I could bleed to death. He told me to leave work and drive home carefully, but couldn't tell me anything else. I have an appointment this afternoon with a hematologist, a blood specialist. Do you think you can get off of work and go with me? I'm so scared."

Eve tried keep the anxiety out of her own voice so Michael wouldn't hear it , "Oh, honey, you know I'll be there. Are you sure you don't want me to drive out to the ranch to pick you up?"

"No, there's no point. Can you meet me at my apartment in an hour?"

"I'll be there. Michael, drive carefully. If you get too nervous or whatever, just call me, don't risk it. I love you."

"I'll be careful. I love you too."

Eve frantically scrambled to find coverage for her shift and left for Michael's apartment, driving fifteen miles an hour too fast, with her heart in her throat.

Ten minutes after Eve arrived at the apartment, Michael got there. He looked ashen and tired, like he had aged ten years since that morning. They were both equally relieved to find that Diane wasn't home. There were enough questions plaguing the two of them without trying to answer the questions Diane would ask that they would have no answer for.

Was it AIDs? Hemophilia? Diabetes? Lupus? Something else entirely? And was it transmittable? Could Eve be at risk too? There was not enough information given to Michael by his doctor to even venture a guess. Besides, Eve and Michael agreed, neither had any idea what disease or diseases would affect the blood he way this was. Twenty minutes before Michael's scheduled appointment with the hematologist, Eve and Michael got into Michael's truck and drove to a medical complex across town.

It was a nondescript, one-story, red brick building, mostly clusters of offices, with little more than suite numbers, etched in white, on the doors. Eve and Michael went to suite sixteen.

Doctor Klausen's office in suite sixteen was as pleasant as any other doctor's office could expect to be. A young woman, Miss Stacey Swanson as declared by the placard in front of her, sat at a receptionist window with frosted glass. She asked Michael to sign in and handed him a clipboard with a pen attached to it by a small chain, to which was affixed insurance forms and health questionnaires to complete. In a daze, Michael began completing the forms and questionnaires; beads of sweat began to appear on his forehead and his hands began to shake. Gently, Eve put her hand on his to stop the tremors and removed the pen from his hand.

"Here, I'll fill out as much of this as I can, ok. You take a deep breath," she said.

Eve began to complete the questionnaires, finding that most of the questions couldn't be answered.

Do you or any one in your family have a history of cancer?

Do you or any one in your family have a history of heart failure?

Do you or any one in your family have a history of mental illness?

Do you or any one in your family have a history of chemical dependency?

Please list the cause of death of any immediate family members who died of illness before the age of sixty-five.

The list continued. Because he was adopted, Eve had to mark all "unknown."

Finally, the questionnaires were as complete as they were going to be. Eve had Michael look them over, he signed that they were accurate, and returned them to Miss Swanson.

Five minutes passed. Forty-five minutes passed. An eternity later, Miss Swanson called Michael's name, an electric buzz signaled that the inner office door was unlocked, and a good-natured looking man, with a salt and pepper moustache, white lab coat, and crinkly eyes, ushered Michael back to a small lab at the back of the office.

"I'm Steve," the lab coat clad man said, "I am the lab tech here. I know this is your first visit to our office, so let me explain what I do. For right now, your doctor has sent you to us because your blood counts are abnormal. What that means is, the red cells, which carry oxygen, the white cells that fight disease, and the platelets, which form scabs and clot your blood when you are injured, are out of whack. The amount of each that you have is below the average that a healthy person has. There are different reasons this happens, so right now I'd like to draw some blood and check where your levels are exactly, as well as runs some tests so the doctor can get an idea what the problem is. Will that be okay?"

Michael slowly nodded.

Steve took out a few vials from a cabinet, wrapped an elastic band around Michael's upper arm to make the veins stand out, swabbed first iodine, then alcohol, then iodine again on a spot on Michael's wrist and expertly inserted a needle into a blue vein. He attached each vial in succession to an open end in the needle, allowed each to fill with blood and placed them on a tray at his right. When he was finished, he carefully withdrew the needle, placed a cotton swab on the puncture site and removed the elastic band from Michael's arm. He placed each vial in a machine that nearly filled a back wall of the small lab, pushed a button, and a few seconds later removed a slip of paper with a bunch of numbers on it from a printer in the corner.

"Thank you, Michael," Steve said, "I'll give this to Doctor Klausen to look at. He'll be in to talk with you in a few minutes."

Steve showed Eve and Michael to a dark paneled consulting office and closed the door. On the walls hung diplomas from schools across the United States and Europe. A built in set of shelves, lined with leather bound tomes, spanned the wall behind the doctor's desk, atop which was a rich burgundy leather ink blotter and an engraved gold pen in a stand.

With a sharp rap at the door, the doctor entered the office. He extended his arm and shook hands with Eve and Michael.

The doctor was a thin, willowy man, with white hair, deep set dark eyes and a beaklike nose. Tweedy slacks were visible where his white over coat ended, and an emerald neck tie peeked through the opening at the collar. Though he seemed to be a wisp of a man, he carried himself with the air of a person who is accustomed to getting what he wanted and would be formidable when he didn't.

When he spoke, a distinct German accent marked his words, "I am Doctor Klausen. I am sure you are very confused as to why you are here. Michael, your Doctor Malint explained that he had told you very little about why he was sending you to me. I understand that you have met my technician, Steve, who has explained the basics of blood make up, but I would like to go over them again, so that we are clear." The practitioner repeated the white cell, red cell and platelet information that Steve had reviewed with Michael.

"Is this much clear to you?"

Michael slowly nodded again.

"I have the answers for you as to why you are here," the doctor continued, "There is some good news and some bad news. First, the good news, we have pinned down your condition, and consider it to be of a more rare, but good in that, more curable strain of your illness. The bad news is that you will need to be hospitalized immediately to begin treatment. It was caught soon enough, but you will need to undergo chemo therapy, perhaps being hospitalized for a month or more so we may attempt remission, administer blood transfusions, and explore other treatment options."

"Chemo? Remission?" Eve gasped. Michael was still silent as a stone, his ashen face now a gray pallor, "Does Michael have cancer, doctor? He's only twenty three! He doesn't smoke anything."

"Forgive me dear lady, I apologize that I was not clear. Michael, you do not have cancer."

Eve sighed.

"You have leukemia."