Fourth Down Read Online Free PDF Page A

Dr.
Greene said with the kind of ease that could only come with telling
people every day that they were going to die. What a fucking
depressing job.
    “Maggie’s breast cancer is Stage Four,
which you already know. The latest tests show us that the
chemotherapy is no longer effective.”
    Dr. Greene and my mom were both
looking at me, waiting for me to say something.
    “What does that mean? Does she need to
switch to another type of treatment?” I asked.
    Dr. Greene shook his head and
explained, “There are no other treatments to try, Ford. We’ve
reached the end of the road. Your mother has four to six months
left, and she has opted to discontinue treatments.”
    My eyebrows pulled together in
confusion, and I frowned at Dr. Greene and then at my
mom.
    “What do you mean four to six months?
Four to six months left to live? Why are you stopping treatments?
Don’t you want to fight this, mom?” My voice sounded desperate, but
I couldn’t control it.
    My mom reached over and laid her hand
on my arm. “Ford, honey, I have fought this. I have fought this
cancer for years, but now it’s time to let go.”
    “You mean give up,” I accused
her.
    “No, Ford. I’m not giving up; I’m
accepting the inevitable. The treatments are no longer working, and
I don’t want to spend my last few months dealing with the side
effects of the chemo. We’ve known this time was coming, and I need
your support.”
    I sat back in my chair out of her
reach and crossed my arms over my chest. I was probably acting like
a spoiled kid, but this was hard to hear. She was right that I knew
this time was coming, but I never actually imagined what it would
be like when it happened.
    Dr. Greene went over some test results
and other shit that made no sense to me. It didn’t matter anyway.
The bottom line was that in four to six months my mom would be
dead. Dead, as in no longer living. Dead, as in gone
forever.
    I paid just enough attention to the
conversation to pick up that the plan now was for my mom to only
take medicine that would help keep her comfortable. As she neared
the end - God, that was hard to think about let alone say out loud
- she would move to a hospice facility. I didn’t really understand
what hospice was exactly, but I wasn’t in the mood to ask more
questions and find out more information that I didn’t want to
hear.
    We didn’t talk when we left Dr.
Greene’s office and rode the elevator down to the first floor. When
we reached my truck, I helped my mom into her seat and took a
minute before getting into my own. Resting against the tailgate, I
took off my baseball cap and ran my hand through my hair. As hard
as this was for me, it had to be a million times harder for my mom.
I needed to get it together and stop acting like such a pussy. She
needed my support, and I would do my best to give it to
her.
    “Do you want to stop at that place on
the lake for lunch?” I asked when I started up my truck. It was a
local winery that served lunch. The food was overpriced and I
always left feeling like I’d hardly eaten anything, but my mom
loved the light girly food they served.
    My mom’s eyes lit up, and she said,
“I’d love to. But we need to be home by 2:00 to meet the home
health aide.”
    “Yeah, I know,” I sighed.
    “Thank you, honey,” my mom said. She
looked like she had more to say, but she knew me well. I’m sure she
could tell that I was about at my limit for today.
    After a lunch of some cold nasty soup
and a salad that looked like it came straight from the yard, I
resigned myself to grabbing a burger when I got to work later. It
was just a few minutes before 2:00 when we pulled onto our
street.
    Our house was in a more rundown area
of town. Up until last year, my mom had always made our small yard
cheery and welcoming with tons of flowers. But now that the yard
work was solely my responsibility, the yard was lucky to see the
mower once a week. Our house, like the rest of my life, had become
neglected