What If We're Not Okay?, chapter 2
"Mr Armstrong?"
I couldn't have stopped my hands shaking now even if I had tried, but I stood up nonetheless and walked carefully into the small room Dr Windslow directed me too.
"So, how are you today?" She asked me, closing the door with her foot while she flipped through the pages in my folder.
I shrugged, not wishing to test my voice out against these nerves. I had never been this nervous before, well, maybe the first concert I ever did with Sweet Children, but that was years ago. Even now, playing in front of hundreds of thousands of people I was never nervous, excited, sure, but never nervous.
Dr Windslow walked around her desk and sat down heavily on her black leather chair. She dropped the folder on her desk and took of her glasses, rubbing her nose where they rested. Dr Windslow was an aging fifty year old with mid brown hair that was flecked with grey at the temples, her job had put strains on her health and it was visible in the deep lines etched on her forehead and around her mouth. She had been our family doctor since we moved to Oakland when the kids were born, every cold, every broken bone she had diagnosed and treated with professional efficiency. If I trusted anyone outside my band, family and bodyguards, it was her.
"Well, I have good news, and I have bad news." She began, picking up her glasses and polishing them on her top. "The tests confirmed my suspicions, so I'm going to go through your results, before I tell you what is going to happen next." She stood up, putting her glasses back on and picking up the x-ray out of my folder. She attached it to the lightbox on the wall and flicked a switch that illuminated the box and sent light through the transparent parts of the x-ray. My ribs and spine were particularly visible, standing out as black shapes against the green transparent plastic on either side. My heart and lungs were also visible, as lighter smudges inside the ribs, but what caught my attention was a dark circle, at the bottom of my left lung.
"These are your two lungs," Dr Windslow traced them with a finger, "And this is what I am worried about." She said pointing to the dark circle. "Now from an x-ray you cannot tell much about the make up of dark areas where there isn't supposed to be bone, but your CAT scan gives us some more information." She pulled the x-ray off and replaced it with my scan. Once again my lungs and heart were visible, but my bones did not show up at all on the scan. What did show up again, however, was the dark circle.
Dr Windslow rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. She didn't say anything else but walked slowly around her desk again to sit in her big black chair, leaving my scan up on the wall. There it was, my chest, and my problem. It seemed to eat me up from the inside, every movement, every breath seemed to centre around that dark circle.
"That... that... thing." I stammered, my voice as uncertain as I guessed it would be, "What is it?"
Dr Windslow sighed again, "Your blood tests show an unusually high percentage of white blood cells, even for a regular smoker such as yourself. We expect a certain amount of blood in the chest area due to the vital organs situated there, but the concentration in that small area is extremely worrying. We could do further tests so as to be one hundred per cent sure, but I would rather not wait. What I think it is, and my fellow doctors here agree with me, is that it's cancer."
That was it, my world fell apart, tears poured out of my eyes and I put my head in my hands and sobbed. So much for punk rockers don't fucking cry. My whole body shook as the realisation hit me. It would never be okay again. I had cancer, lung cancer, the same type my father had died of when I was ten. Shit, my father had died from it. He was one of the strongest people from my life and was reduced to a mere shell as it devoured him and his strength. If he hadn't survived, I didn't have a hope in hell. What was going to happen now?
"It is difficult to tell what stage it is in, but other signs would have shown up on your scans if it had progressed very far into stage two or stage three. If it had progressed into stage two there would also be traces of cancerous tissue in your blood test, which there wasn't. I cannot at this stage comment on how fast it will grow or how fast it will take to move into stage two. However, right now I would recommend going to see a specialist and starting chemotherapy as soon as possible. Mr Armstrong, I'm sorry." Dr Windslow opened her hands and lifted her head to look me in the eye, "There is nothing else I can do to help you."
I couldn't have stopped my hands shaking now even if I had tried, but I stood up nonetheless and walked carefully into the small room Dr Windslow directed me too.
"So, how are you today?" She asked me, closing the door with her foot while she flipped through the pages in my folder.
I shrugged, not wishing to test my voice out against these nerves. I had never been this nervous before, well, maybe the first concert I ever did with Sweet Children, but that was years ago. Even now, playing in front of hundreds of thousands of people I was never nervous, excited, sure, but never nervous.
Dr Windslow walked around her desk and sat down heavily on her black leather chair. She dropped the folder on her desk and took of her glasses, rubbing her nose where they rested. Dr Windslow was an aging fifty year old with mid brown hair that was flecked with grey at the temples, her job had put strains on her health and it was visible in the deep lines etched on her forehead and around her mouth. She had been our family doctor since we moved to Oakland when the kids were born, every cold, every broken bone she had diagnosed and treated with professional efficiency. If I trusted anyone outside my band, family and bodyguards, it was her.
"Well, I have good news, and I have bad news." She began, picking up her glasses and polishing them on her top. "The tests confirmed my suspicions, so I'm going to go through your results, before I tell you what is going to happen next." She stood up, putting her glasses back on and picking up the x-ray out of my folder. She attached it to the lightbox on the wall and flicked a switch that illuminated the box and sent light through the transparent parts of the x-ray. My ribs and spine were particularly visible, standing out as black shapes against the green transparent plastic on either side. My heart and lungs were also visible, as lighter smudges inside the ribs, but what caught my attention was a dark circle, at the bottom of my left lung.
"These are your two lungs," Dr Windslow traced them with a finger, "And this is what I am worried about." She said pointing to the dark circle. "Now from an x-ray you cannot tell much about the make up of dark areas where there isn't supposed to be bone, but your CAT scan gives us some more information." She pulled the x-ray off and replaced it with my scan. Once again my lungs and heart were visible, but my bones did not show up at all on the scan. What did show up again, however, was the dark circle.
Dr Windslow rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. She didn't say anything else but walked slowly around her desk again to sit in her big black chair, leaving my scan up on the wall. There it was, my chest, and my problem. It seemed to eat me up from the inside, every movement, every breath seemed to centre around that dark circle.
"That... that... thing." I stammered, my voice as uncertain as I guessed it would be, "What is it?"
Dr Windslow sighed again, "Your blood tests show an unusually high percentage of white blood cells, even for a regular smoker such as yourself. We expect a certain amount of blood in the chest area due to the vital organs situated there, but the concentration in that small area is extremely worrying. We could do further tests so as to be one hundred per cent sure, but I would rather not wait. What I think it is, and my fellow doctors here agree with me, is that it's cancer."
That was it, my world fell apart, tears poured out of my eyes and I put my head in my hands and sobbed. So much for punk rockers don't fucking cry. My whole body shook as the realisation hit me. It would never be okay again. I had cancer, lung cancer, the same type my father had died of when I was ten. Shit, my father had died from it. He was one of the strongest people from my life and was reduced to a mere shell as it devoured him and his strength. If he hadn't survived, I didn't have a hope in hell. What was going to happen now?
"It is difficult to tell what stage it is in, but other signs would have shown up on your scans if it had progressed very far into stage two or stage three. If it had progressed into stage two there would also be traces of cancerous tissue in your blood test, which there wasn't. I cannot at this stage comment on how fast it will grow or how fast it will take to move into stage two. However, right now I would recommend going to see a specialist and starting chemotherapy as soon as possible. Mr Armstrong, I'm sorry." Dr Windslow opened her hands and lifted her head to look me in the eye, "There is nothing else I can do to help you."
