Page 11 of Obedience

It was almost two o’clock and Greta’s busy clinic was running over, though the hardest part was yet to come. She had two patients left to see, both of whom, unbeknownst to them, were waiting to hear that the treatment they had endured for their cancer hadn't worked, despite its intense and utterly gruelling nature. It was the kind of news that never got easier to deliver.

‘Jacob is in room three, Greta,’ Jan said, her expression mirroring the heaviness Greta felt. ‘Observations are done. He’s with his mum. I’ll just get him a brew.’

Jan was the beating heart of the outpatient department, a woman with a kind face and a soft grey bob who lived for her job. While most NHS staff were counting the days until they could leave for good, Jan was already planning her return after retirement. She was one of the few who still saw the beauty in the work, even on days like this.

‘Okay, thank you, Jan. I’m just waiting for his clinical nurse specialist to arrive—’

‘I’m here, Greta! Sorry,’ a breathless voice interrupted from the doorway. ‘I was caught up on the ward.’

Blowing her fringe back with a puff of air from her mouth, her cheeks suffused with warmth and blush, Jody plonked her bag down on the desk next to Greta’s laptop.

‘Hi Jody, how are you?’ Greta said, smiling fondly at the harassed looking nurse.

‘I’m good, thanks lovely, how are you? God, I’m bloody dreading this with Jacob,’ Jody’s tone enthusiastic at first but sinking at the end of her sentence as she struggled with her jacket, unable to get it down her arms quick enough. ‘Jesus Christ, I’m boiling. Someone needs to pop a note through to maintenance; every frigging radiator is on in that atrium! It’s pissing glass for crying out loud. Tis essentially a greenhouse.’ Greta laughed, her finger moving over the trackpad on her laptop as she continued scrolling through patient notes. ‘Has he been in touch with you, Greta? I saw him at home on Wednesday. Breaks my actual heart.’ Jody said solemnly, draping her jacket over the back of the wheeled chair she was pushing towards Greta’s desk.

‘No, I haven’t seen him since his last clinic appointment. I suspect he knows where we’re up to, Jode. His sarcoma has relapsed very quickly. He’s incredibly switched on… I think he is fully aware that, unfortunately, this has dramatically reduced his chances of short-term survival. We have a couple more lines of therapy, a trial perhaps, but his lung mets mean… Well, as you know, it’s not great,’ Greta said, her matter-of-fact tone belying the sinking feeling in her gut.

‘He’s gone through all that chemo, radiotherapy, lost his leg and still relapsed. It’s bloody heartbreaking,’ Jody sighed. ‘Eighteen, Greta. It’s no age is it? Jesus, I don’t know about you, but I was partying my literal tits off at eighteen!’ Jody laughed, pulling her bottom lip down to one side with retrospective exasperation, while performing a short but rather impressive rendition of the ‘big fish, little fish, cardboard box’ dance with her hands. The addition of the lyrics in her thick, mad fer it Mancunian accent made the whole thing all the more comical. The rest of the office turned to watch as her head jerked forward and back, bringing a very much needed lightness to the room.

Though Greta smiled, a pang of sadness rippled through her as she thought back to the mid-nineties when she was eighteen. Still grappling with self-acceptance in a world that didn’t accept or want her. She wordlessly replied by laughing and shaking her head. After locking her laptop screen she spun on her chair to face Jody. ‘Shall we?’ Greta said in a low voice.

Jody replied with a groan that said no, absolutely not, but she stood, smoothing her skirt with her hands. They walked through the bustling office together, Jody holding the door as Greta stepped through to deliver the news that would break the heart of a family into a million pieces.

***

‘How long?’ Jacob said quietly. His head dipped, gaze fixed on the exposed titanium ankle of his leg prosthesis. His fingers fidgeted with the edge of the plastic covering the residual limb under his tracksuit bottoms. ‘A year? What? What am I looking at?’

Greta inhaled. ‘With more treatment, long months. Without…’ she exhaled. ‘Perhaps weeks, Jacob.’

‘Fuck,’ Jacob whispered as he broke down.

The sound of his mother’s racking sobs had become deafening, filling the room like an air raid siren. Greta leaned forward in her seat, passing them a box of tissues.

‘We have trial options, Jacob, but there are no guarantees it will get you anymore—’

‘No!’ Jacob interrupted, as he roughly scrubbed his face with both hands, sniffing loudly. ‘No, I don’t want more time in this fucking place.’ He rubbed his wet hands over his thighs.

‘I understand,’ Greta said gently.

Jacob took a steadying breath, set his jaw and forced himself upright. ‘Well. That’s that then. I best start getting that bucket list ticked,’ he said with a gut-wrenching feigned pragmatism.

Turning to Jacob’s mum, Greta reached over, placing a soft hand on her forearm, squeezing gently. ‘Is there anything you’d like to ask, Sarah?’ she said, trying desperately not to allow her voice to fracture.

Try as she might to block them out, these conversations affected her deeply. But the sorrow wasn’t hers. Jacob wasn’t her son. She was there to be professional, to be the steady presence in the storm engulfing their lives, but the salt of tears stung behind her eyes and in her throat regardless. Sometimes, they gathered on her lashes, heavy and shimmering, but she never allowed them to fall. Not in front of the patients and never in front of their families.

‘No,’ Sarah sniffed. ‘I just want to take my boy home,’ her words were choked and punctuated by sobs.

‘Sarah,’ Jody began softly, looking solemnly toward Greta. ‘We will be with you every single step of the way. Every single step,’ she said adamantly, pulling Sarah into the crook of her arm.

‘Mum, we’ve got this. We’ve fucking got this, yeah,’ Jacob said, his voice coated in bravado.

Jacob leaned to grab his mum’s hand; the touch only served to make her sobs louder. Her shoulders heaved uncontrollably as he gently squeezed.

‘Jacob, go home and think about what you want to do. Let Jody know when you want to talk. When you are ready, I will see you in my very next clinic… Okay?’ Greta said warmly.

‘Okay, Doctor G. Thank you. I don’t want a trial though, I know that. I’m not spending my last months on Earth like one of those lab beagles,’ he said through a humourless chuckle.

Greta didn't correct him; the nuances of clinical trials could wait. She simply smiled at his use of ‘Dr G.’ She let her patients call her that. It was never by her instruction. It was just what they did. Whether they were meeting in the waiting room, sharing a ward, or bonding over activities provided by the youth support team, they talked. They discussed their consultants and their care. The nickname had grown organically from those conversations. She didn't mind it. Though her patient group, all aged sixteen to twenty-four, could be a challenging one, they treated her with a level of respect that made the ‘Dr G’ title feel like an honour rather than a lapse in formality.