Love and Legs

Part 1 of 1

The Autumn air was crisp and leaves blew around my feet. I had been coming to this spot at a ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada  mountains for twelve years now. Since eighteen my whole life had been about writing. I took to it my senior year of high school and pursued the pages as an outlet for my problems and dreams. Then I started to write fiction and my career took off. The beautiful  river that flowed through the ranch property made for a great remedy for writer's block and a good way to clear my head. It's funny, for so long my escape has been my books. Now my own book was coming to and end.

I snap out of my head and back to reality. I'm no longer at the ranch, I'm at the local clinic two hours away from the serenity of my river, in the busy city of Lake Tahoe, CA.

Cancer. A word no one ever wants to hear.

"You have cancer." Dr. Rambi said as he showed me my screens and lab work, all proving why I have been feeling like I've been stabbed in the back of the calf with a hot poker for months. I heard the words but couldn't comprehend.
"It was just leg pain." I said in confusion. "Just leg pain and some swelling. I must have twisted wrong, pulled something."
"I know this is very difficult to comprehend, but we have counselors that can help you. they can help you understand the gravity of the situation then we can move on to treatment plans." Dr. Rambi replied, as he held out a pamphlet. I just shook my head in reply and grabbed the booklet with smiling faces ready to hear your call on it. "Call them. I want you back in two weeks to discuss our plans."

My best friend, Alex, waited for me in the waiting room of the clinic. "Hey! How did it go? It's a pulled mucsle isn't? I knew it, Jo. You shouldn't have tried roller blading. Stick to writing." he said matter of factly.
"It's cancer." I said. "The swelling was a tumor. It's pressing on a nerve in the back of my calf." I was so spaced out and in my own head I'm sure I looked as confused as I felt. Alex just stood there, dumbfounded. I started to walk out of the clinic door and to the parking lot. I walked with the cane Alex had gotten me when I first developed my limp. Finally joining me in my crippled saunter, "Cancer? No that's like a thing older people get. You're thirty, an accomplished writer..." he trailed off.."my best friend..." he looked down at his feet. "Ok. So what did they say about it? Anything else? Is it spreading? Can they cut it out? You know chicks with scars are hot." he chuckled to himself lightly.
Alex always had a way of bringing humor to the worst situations.  It was his gift, cheering people up. He had been my only true friend and I his. We had been through it all, from bullying in high school, break ups, all the way to moving, watching my career take off and helping him get into rehab. He had 5 years clean of heroin in January. No matter what, we were there for each other.  No matter what, Alex was there for a laugh and a cheerful outlook on the situation and usually I laugh and say he's  right, and I would turn our situations into fantasy stories with worse problems and easy solutions where the hero always won. Not this time. This time my own story saw no way of a happy ending. This is one battle a hero, no matter how golden, could beat. Cancer was cancer and although it did happen to a few lucky ones, cancer never lost.

"It's cancer, Alex. Not some torn tendon they can go and repair. This is big leagues. Cells and shit. You can't stop biology. Not at a microscopic level. Please take me home. I have to think."

It was two weeks later and we had just left my  doctor's appointment. "We'll beat the shit out of this." he said as he pulled into the driveway of my apartment. "What do we need to do? Radiation? Chemo? What did the doc say? You haven't spoken a word since we left that office. I knew I should have went in with you. I can't help you if i..." I cut him off. "Stop! The treatment he wants to do isn't gonna happen, ok?!" I began to tear up and my voice cracked. "It's getting harder to walk and the only good news about anything is that the cancer is contained to my leg."
"That's great!" Alex said relived. "They will cut it out and bada bing bada boom! Done with it!"
"Cut it out. Ha!" I laughed under my breath, full on tears streaming down my face now.  I looked out the window of Alex's '69 Camaro, classic American muscle. I watched the rain droplets race each other down my window. Always rooting for the underdog, knowing the same fate was destined for both, a big puddle on the ground. Watching the rain fall down literally and figuratively on my life. "They said the only way to give me a significant survival rate is to cut the leg off. Off, Alex. As in one legged wonder. A cripple."
I got out of the car and up to my apartment as fast as my limp would let me.