Midway through March, his father Bob and brother Aaron came to stay for the weekend. Aaron had been in Florida to shoot something for Nickelodeon at their Orlando studio, and Bob had accompanied him there, while Jane stayed in California with Leslie and Angel. Bob had called the week before and talked to Nick, telling him how Aaron was longing to see him and wondering if they could stop by Tampa before heading back to California. Nick had said yes, arranging for them to arrive Friday afternoon and leave by Sunday night. He didn’t have radiation on weekends, so this would give him a chance to spend a few days with his father and brother without having to tell them he had relapsed. He figured that as long as he hid his marked-up leg and acted perky, they would never know, and he preferred to keep it that way, at least for awhile.
Bob’s rented car pulled up at around two in the afternoon. Nick was right there to answer the door, and Aaron bounded in immediately. He hesitated inside the door a moment, giving Nick a once-over, and then, apparently deciding it was okay, launched himself at Nick. Laughing, Nick stumbled back, almost losing his balance, for Aaron had gotten a lot taller since the last time they had seen each other. He was now almost as tall as Nick, Nick realized in surprise as he wrapped the sixteen-year-old up in a brotherly bear hug.
“Hey, AC,” he said, ruffling Aaron’s mop of blonde hair.
Aaron pulled back and grinned. “Hey, you look tons better than last time I was here. Dang, you looked like shit then.”
“Yeah, well...” Nick said with a roll of his eyes, leaving the comment unfinished.
Bob Carter stumbled in then, a bulging duffel bag over each shoulder. “Hey, Aaron,” he grunted, “you wanna get this?”
“Oh, sorry, Dad!” Aaron immediately grabbed his own duffel. “I’m gonna take this upstairs, be right back!” he announced and literally ran up the stairs, dragging the bag behind. It bounced harshly against every step, and Nick hoped there was nothing breakable inside because it sure as hell wouldn’t be in one piece by the time it made it upstairs.
“How are you doing?” Bob asked, pulling Nick into a hug and awkwardly patting his back.
“Fine,” Nick lied, pasting a smile on his face. “And you? How was the drive?”
“Oh, it was okay. Uneventful,” answered Bob with a casual shrug.
“That’s good. You wanna come sit down?” They abandoned Bob’s luggage in the foyer and went into Nick’s living room, where Bob sat down in an armchair, and Nick slumped onto the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table in front of him.
“I heard the new album,” Bob began. “It was terrific. The best you guys have come out with so far, I think.” He gave Nick a proud smile.
“Thanks,” Nick grinned, pleased. “So, um... how are the girls?”
“Oh, everyone’s great. Leslie’s been working on her next album, Angel’s just been going to school, and BJ... well...” He trailed off, and Nick only nodded sadly, knowing exactly what his father meant. BJ had gotten into drugs, been in trouble several times in the past few years, and had slowly cut herself off from her family. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen her, and it was painful to think of her, for when they were younger, Nick and BJ had been very close.
“Your mother is doing fine too,” Bob said carefully and added with a meaningful look, “but she misses you. I wish you’d talk to her, Nick.”
But Nick only shook his head stubbornly. “No. I’m sorry, Dad, but I just can’t. Not yet anyway. Give it some more time.”
Bob nodded. “I’ll tell her you send your love.”
Nick opened his mouth and started to tell him not to bother, but, seeing the stern look on his father’s face, he changed his mind. “Sure,” he replied, his voice toneless.
Aaron came springing back into the room and flung himself onto the couch beside Nick. “So,” he said, “you wanna go shoot some hoops, Nick? I don’t wanna just sit around and talk; my legs are all cramped from being in the car.”
Nick was tired, and his leg was hurting, and basketball was pretty much the last thing he felt like doing. But it had been so long since he’d seen Aaron that he just couldn’t tell him no. Besides, he didn’t want to let on to the fact that anything was wrong. So he nodded and forced a smile, saying, “Yeah, sure, AC, let’s go.”
“You comin’, Dad?” Aaron asked, as the brothers got up from the couch.
“No, I think I’ll relax for awhile, if that’s okay with you two,” Bob replied.
“Sure, that’s cool, Dad. We’ll be in later,” Nick promised and led Aaron out through the garage, where they found a basketball. Nick had a hoop mounted near the driveway, and they took turns just shooting for awhile, warming up. While he was just casually shooting hoops, Nick was fine (although his shots were terrible, and Aaron teased him relentlessly for being so out of practice). But as soon as the teenager challenged him to a game of one-on-one, Nick knew things would go steadily downhill.
Although he had gotten himself back into shape for the album release a month earlier, the radiation made him tired, and he grew winded easily. Not to mention, his leg ached with every step, and trying to run on it was downright painful. Still, he gritted his teeth and tried not to show it as he pivoted and ducked away from Aaron’s flailing arms.
“Okay, ten point rule. You win,” Nick announced breathlessly, letting the ball roll into the grass after Aaron had sunk his tenth shot, his score now double what Nick’s was.
“Ahh, come on, you can still try and catch up!” Aaron insisted. Laughing, he added, “Not like you’re gonna, but you can try.”
“Nah, I’m givin’ up, bro. You’ve already kicked my ass,” Nick admitted with a weary grin.
Aaron threw his hands up in the air victoriously, gloating at having beaten his older brother, for it didn’t happen often. But as Nick sank down onto the hard cement of the driveway, stretching his legs out in front of him and groaning painfully, a look of concern spread over his face. “Hey, you okay, Nick?” he asked, squatting down beside Nick and lightly touching his shoulder.
“Yeah, I’m cool, kid. Just tired. You wore me out, ya know?”
“Are you sure? You look kinda clammy.” Nick gave him a patronizing look, wishing Aaron would just drop the issue.
“I’m not clammy; I’m just sweaty because I’m hot,” he enunciated.
“Maybe you should have worn shorts then, dumbass. I told you you’d get hot in jeans!”
Nick rolled his eyes, but could feel himself blushing as he remembered why he was wearing long pants in the first place. Luckily, his face was already red from the exercise, and Aaron did not notice.
“Well, I dunno about you, but I’m gonna head inside and get somethin’ to drink,” Nick announced, hauling himself off of the ground. “You comin’?”
“Yeah, sure.”
As they walked inside, Nick lightly smacked the back of Aaron’s head. “You just got lucky today, dude,” he remarked playfully. “Wait till the rematch; I’m gonna kick your scrawny ass.”
“Ohh, I’m sure,” said Aaron, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Bring it on, bitch!”
Nick whacked him upside the head a second time as, laughing, they entered the kitchen.
***
At the end of the six-week course of radiation, Nick had an appointment with Dr. Kingsbury. He had been seeing Dr. Marvin every week for x-rays, but the radiation oncologist only briefly examined him and never filled him in on how the treatments were going. After this check-up with Dr. Kingsbury, he would know in what direction this ominous road would lead him.
He prayed that the radiation had done its job and shrunken the tumor so that he could take the exit that would lead him away from the obstacles his cancer had created. But if the radiation hadn’t worked... then he had reached the bridge.
“Most Ewing’s Sarcoma tumors are sensitive to radiation. There’s a good chance the treatment will help.”
“Well, what if it doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come it.”
Nick didn’t want to cross that bridge. In his mind, it was a narrow, rickety bridge, made of rotting wooden boards and held together with nothing but fraying rope. It stretched across a wide precipice that was so deep, it simply faded into blackness with no bottom in sight. And though the thought of navigating that treacherous pass was frightening, it was really not knowing what dangers loomed on the other side that terrified him.
The appointment that day was almost like all the others, the only exception being Nick did not have to endure another bone marrow aspiration. This suited him just fine; in fact, it please him so much that when Dr. Kingsbury came into the examining room near the end of the appointment, Nick was in a fairly good mood, not especially worried about what she had to say. The radiation worked, he had been telling himself over and over again. It had to have. Your tumor’s gonna be gone... or almost gone anyway.
This was the thought he kept chanting inwardly as he watched his doctor carefully place six x-ray films onto the light board, all in a row. He longed to just come out and ask her if it had worked, but he held his tongue and waited impatiently for her to give him the news.
“Nick, these are the x-rays you’ve had taken of your leg after each week of radiation,” Dr. Kingsbury began, turning to face him. She turned on the board, illuminating the six dark films. “This one,” she said, pointing to the one on the left end, “was the first taken after your first week of radiation. You can see your tumor here.” With her finger, she traced a circle around the dark spot lodged in the white bone of his tibia. The spot was big, bigger than he remembered it, and he got a sick feeling in his stomach just looking at it.
“The rest of the films,” the doctor carried on, waving her arm across the board to encompass the other five, “are the ones taken in subsequent weeks. They’re in order. This one at the end is the one we took today.” Nick’s eyes traveled across the white board to the film at the right end. To his dismay, he could still vividly see the dark spot that was his tumor. His heart beginning to race with trepidation, his eyes flickered back to the first film on the opposite end, as he tried to compare the size of both spots.
“You can see that there’s not much of a difference in size between the one from five weeks ago and the one from today,” said Dr. Kingsbury, and, his heart sinking, Nick realized she was right. The spot on the right end film looked no smaller than the one on the left; in fact, it seemed almost bigger...
“Are you sure they’re not switched around or something?” he asked, a hint of desperation wavering in his voice.
“No,” said Dr. Kingsbury, shaking her head regrettably. “I’m so sorry, Nick, but the truth is, the radiation hasn’t helped.”
So they had reached the bridge.
“It hasn’t shrunken the tumor, and it’s only stunted its growth slightly,” Dr. Kingsbury continued gravely. “The cancer is still spreading, and I’m afraid we’re going to need to consider more drastic measures to stop it before it metastasizes to another part of your body.”
Nick stared at her, frozen in fear, his pounding heart the only muscle moving in his body. “M-more drastic measures?” he repeated, his voice hoarse from the lump that had lodged itself in this throat. “Like what?”
“Chemotherapy helped, but not enough to keep you in remission. Radiation didn’t work. There’s really only one more option at this point, and that’s surgery.”
Surgery. The word hit him like a brick. No, more like a block of ice, which an invisible force had shoved down his throat. It slid all the way down to the pit of his stomach, where it settled, leaving an icy trail that numbed his insides.
He had never gone under the knife before, with the exception of the biopsy they had done on his leg prior to his initial diagnosis. But, as Dr. Kingsbury had stressed, that had only been very minor surgery... and somehow, the way she had said that horrible word surgery this time, he knew it was going to be a much bigger deal.
“Surgery,” he heard himself echo, his voice sounding small and scared. “You mean you’re going to, like, cut out the tumor?” He was already beginning to feel light-headed, his body trembling as he thought about someone cutting into his leg, slicing right into his bone to extract the malignant growth that lurked within it.
“No, Nick,” Dr. Kingsbury answered gently, and for a fleeting moment, relief washed over him. But then the doctor pulled up her stool and sat down right in front of him, resting a hand on his right knee as she looked seriously up into his eyes. “The tumor is too big to be removed. At this stage, the best option...”
He drew in a shaky breath and held it as she continued.
“... is amputation.”
***
