To My Romeo, with Love novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Deauville 4

The oncologist called at eight o'clock exactly.

I put her on speaker and set the phone on the quilt between us.

Fraser sat up against the headboard with the sheet around his waist and his glasses back on.

"Laurel, I want to start with what's good," she said. "The mass in your neck has shrunk by more than half. The nodes in your chest have responded too."

My shoulders came down.

"But there is one node behind your breastbone that's still lit up on the scan. It's smaller than it was. It hasn't gone away."

My stomach dropped.

"What does that mean?"

"It means the standard drugs are working, but not as well as I'd like. I don't want to wait and hope. I want to change the plan."

Fraser's hand found mine under the quilt.

"There's a stronger combination, called BEACOPP. It's given in four cycles, three weeks apart. It's harder than what you've had. You'll be sicker, and your counts will go lower, and you'll need injections to help your bone marrow. But in people whose first scan looks like yours, it works better."

"What are my odds?" I said.

"Honestly? Before, I'd have said eighty-five to ninety. Now I'd say about seventy-five. And with the new treatment, if it clears the last node, they go back up."

Seventy-five.

I heard it and the room went quiet and far away.

"Okay," I said. "When?"

"Tuesday. Your eggs are already frozen, which is the good news. That would have been a harder conversation if we hadn't done it."

I thought of an envelope that smelled like cedar.

I thanked her.

I ended the call.

Then I sat there with the phone in my hand and felt the walls of my own head close in.

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