“It treats four things. I know he’s not taking it for breast cancer or ovarian cancer, so which is it? Prostate or the other one?” I hoped to God it wasn’t pancreatic. My dad’s dad had it and died less than six months after the diagnosis.
“Patient confidentiality, Charlie—I can’t say.” But her face was telling me something else.
“Come on, Melissa. You’re not a doctor. And someone told you.”
“Because I have to work with him. To do that I need to know the overall picture.”
“I can keep a secret. You know that already, right?” Meaning the high-power painkillers that I wasn’t actually old enough to dispense.
She sighed. “It’s prostate cancer. Abrams—the orthopedist who worked on him—saw it on the X-rays. Well advanced but not metastasized. Lynparza slows the growth of tumors. Sometimes actually reverses it.”
“Shouldn’t he be on more drugs? Like chemo? Or radiation treatments?”
Mrs. Richland was out again. She twiddled and we twiddled back.
Melissa hesitated, then must have decided that, having gone this far, there was no point in stopping. “He saw Dr. Patterson, who’s head of the Oncology Department at Arcadia. He laid out the options, and Bowditch refused all of them except the Lynparza.”
“Why?”
“You’d have to ask him that, Charlie, but if you do, don’t tell him about this conversation. I probably wouldn’t lose my job, but technically I could. And listen, there are doctors—plenty of them—who’d say he made the right call. Prostate cancer slows down in old men. With the Lynparza, he might have years.”
10
That night we watched another episode of The Voice. When it was over, Mr. Bowditch struggled up on his crutches. “This could be a big night, Charlie. I think I’m actually going to take a shit.”
“The fireworks are ready,” I said.
“Save it for your stand-up routine.” When I tried to follow him to the kitchen, he turned his head and snapped, “Go back and watch your gadget, for God’s sake. If I fall down, you can pick me up.”
I went back. I heard the door to the little bathroom close. I waited. Five minutes passed. Then ten. I tossed Radar her monkey until she wouldn’t chase it anymore and curled up on her rug. At last I went to the kitchen doorway and asked if he was okay.
“Fine,” he called back. “But I could use a stick of dynamite. Fucking OxyContin.”
The toilet finally flushed and when he came out, he was sweaty but smiling. “The Eagle has landed. Thank Christ.”
I helped him back into bed and decided to take advantage of his good mood. I showed him the bottle of Lynparza. “I read up on this stuff, and you could be doing a lot more.”
“Is that so, Dr. Reade?” But there was a faint smile at the corners of his mouth, and that gave me enough courage to go on.
“Doctors have got a lot of weapons against cancer now. I just don’t get why you wouldn’t use them.”
“It’s quite simple. You know I’m in pain. You know I can’t sleep without those goddam constipating pills. You’ve heard me scream at Melissa, who is a very nice woman. So far I’ve managed to avoid calling her a cunt or a bitch, but those unpleasant words could pop out at any time. Why would I want to add nausea, vomiting, and cramps to the pain I’m already suffering?”
I started to reply, but he got up on one elbow and made a shushing sound.
“There’s something else, young man. Something a person your age can’t understand. I’ve almost had enough. Not quite, but almost. Life gets old. You might not believe that, I know I didn’t when I…” He paused. “… when I was young, but it’s true.” He lay back, groped for Radar, found her, stroked her. “But I didn’t want to leave her alone, right? We’re pals, she and I. And now I don’t have to worry. If she outlives me, you’d take her. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“As for the therapy…” His smile broadened. “Today I got ten degrees of bend, and I’ve started using that rubber band thing to flex my ankle. I’m going to work hard, because I don’t want to die in bed. Especially not on this fucking roll-out couch.”
11
We hadn’t discussed the source of the gold—that was the elephant in the room—but on Sunday I realized there was something we had to discuss. I could still give him his morning and evening pills, but what was he going to do about the midday ones once I went back to school?