What Comes After Regret

Li Hua Dumont sat there unable to avoid looking at the scan of her brain. The little black and grayish lump on the screen with its tendrils reaching out, were slowly stealing everything away from her, but she felt only calmness looking at the screen.

This was not her first time facing this image, though it had grown and changed, she found herself still stuck in placidness. Like a pool of water before a pebble has been tossed in. As the doctor spoke she heard a faint ringing in the back of her ears, as if from far away.

"Ms. Dumont, I regret to inform you that you have a grade IV astrocytoma originating in your spinal cord that has aggressively spread to your brainstem, and is reaching towards your cerebellum. Due to the location and nature of the cytoma, surgical removal is not possible. We can, however, perform a few measures to help delay the growth rate, as well as ease with your daily comfort."

"How long?" Li Hua asked the man in the white suit calmly explaining her death.

"Without treatment a few weeks at most, with treatment, twelve weeks or so." The man hesitated only momentarily before saying the words that made her heart sink like a stone.

'Such a short amount of time. You never really were the patient type were you Hénri?' Li Hua reflected hearing that.

"We can offer treatment through nutrition, radiation, or through chemotherapy-"

"No chemotherapy, when I die, I will die as myself, not a pale shade. I don't want to leave that as the last image in my daughter's eyes." Interrupting the man, Li Hua firmly denied the final option.

"The chemotherapy treatment would be more for treatment of your symptoms."

"Hao Jin Ying has been providing excellent palliative care without the use of such things. I have also been injected with a dendetric cell vaccine to help boost my own body's defenses against the cancer's growth. I was originally diagnosed in 2016."

"Really?" The doctor turned to look at the woman sitting beside Li Hua with an appraising look. "I should confer with Ms. Hao about the things she has done while as your Personal Care physician for medical purposes."

"The only thing that we would be able to provide then would be radiation treatment. In particular IMRD, which would target just the areas of the tumor. It would be non-invasive, and will help to slow the progression of the growth, as well as alleviate some of the symptoms through targeted degradation of the tumor."

Li Hua nodded woodenly holding Hao Jin Ying's hand as if it were a lifeline keeping her from drowning.

"If I were to have sought treatment right after I was diagnosed, would I might have.." Li Hua couldn't help finding herself asking.

The doctor's look softened hearing her trailed off question. He shook his head slowly, " it would only have prolonged it by a few years or so."

'A few years..' Li Hua truly realized how precious a few years time could be, there was still so much she had wanted to see through.

"I see. Thank you doctor." Li Hua thanked the doctor with a face devoid of any emotion.

"If you would like, we could begin the first treatment later today or tomorrow if you would like."

"I think I would like to clear my head for the rest of the day, and spend the day tomorrow with my daughter and son-in-law. I have so few left.." Her voice became inaudible to the doctor at the last part, but not to Hao Jin Ying who sat beside her.

Beneath her exterior the doctor could still sense her sadness from years in the profession, he knew that she would need some time to process before taking action.

"I understand, I will prepare for the day after tomorrow, I will exit now and give you a moment of privacy. Good day Ms. Dumont, Ms Hao. Effendi." He bowed his head to Hakim before departing through the door leading to the hallway of the medical laboratory.