His First Love, My Last Goodbye novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Handover
On Monday morning Ezra turned his monitor so she could see the new scan.
The tumor in her liver had a white edge now, like a coastline on a map.
It had grown since the biopsy, in four days.
"I won't dress it up," he said.
"Please don't."
"You have a narrow window. The standard drugs buy time, but they won't change the ending." He took off his glasses. "St. Brendan's runs an access panel for trial slots and compassionate-use drugs. There's a new immunotherapy arm in New York with two openings left."
"Who decides?"
"Three reviewers a week. They read the file blind, with no name and no photograph, only age, stage and scans."
"Blind," Esme said.
"It's the one fair thing this hospital does. They can't pull strings for a friend because they never know whose file it is."
"Then do it."
He typed with two fingers, slowly, and read the line aloud as he went.
"Twenty-nine-year-old female. Stage four colorectal, liver metastases. ECOG one. Good organ function. Highly motivated."
"Motivated."
"It's the only adjective they respond to." He hit send. "They sit tomorrow. If it's a yes, you start in three weeks."
"And if it's a no?"
"Then I'll find another door."
She looked at the little paper boat she had set on his desk, and then at him.
"Don't tell Matthias."
"I haven't told anyone." Ezra's voice dropped. "Esme, I think you should."
"I know you think so."
"He's a good doctor. He could open doors I can't."
"He's a good doctor," she agreed. "That's why I can't."
At noon she walked onto 6 West and asked the charge nurse for ten minutes.
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