The next two days passed in a surrealistic blur. Joey went through what felt like a hundred tests, getting poked with needle after needle until he started to think of himself as a living pincushion. He half-expected to start glowing in the dark after the X-rays. And when there were no scans or blood draws, he spent most of his time shut up in his room.

He seldom complained, yet his friends could tell he wasn’t enjoying this one bit. They couldn’t blame him, either.

At least the staff was friendly, the food was surprisingly good (even Chris had to admit to that), and Joey had some terrific room service right at his fingertips. One push of a button, and he could have anything he wanted on the spot—anything, of course, excepting a clean bill of health and an official discharge from this place. Beyond that, it helped a great deal to have the guys around, even if they couldn’t do much about the situation. True to their promise, they took turns staying with Joey at night; after Lance, JC volunteered the second round, and Chris took over the third night. They would sleep on some chair or couch, and sometimes, when sleep was impossible, Joey would chat quietly with them, play some board or card game, or watch TV.

On the fourth day, Dr. Coleman entered Joey’s room with the certified diagnosis. All of Joey’s friends were already gathered around him when she came in. She smiled at them, as she always did, but her eyes revealed that she had some very serious news. Joey felt his mouth go dry and his heart rate pick up, but his voice stayed reasonably steady when he asked, “So, what’s the news flash, doctor?”

Dr. Coleman closed the door and quietly drew up a chair for herself by the bed. She took her time sitting down and getting comfortable before removing several papers from the folder she had brought with her. The way she looked and acted made the other guys nervous, too; Lance and JC, who sat on opposite sides of Joey, huddled a bit closer to him as if to guard him from danger. Chris and Justin, who shared a mini-couch on JC’s side, sat up taller and stiffer. Chris was wearing sunglasses at the moment, and he lifted them to the top of his head. Justin nudged the brim of his jet-black baseball cap a little higher.

Even after taking her seat and extracting the papers, Dr. Coleman waited another minute before she spoke. “As you can see, Joey,”—Joey had always preferred his first name to “Mr. Fatone”—“I have your results right here. We now understand what’s been happening with your body, what it is we’re up against.”  

“And?” Joey hesitated to ask.  

Lance’s hand groped for Joey’s. JC’s hand moved to Joey’s shoulder. Chris leaned forward, his eyes set to pop from their sockets. Justin’s throat twitched as he swallowed hard.

Dr. Coleman closed her eyes and took a slow breath. “There’s no way to go around this, or to sugarcoat it. So I’ll give it to you straight.”

One minute more before she let it spill. 

“You have cancer.”

“What?” Joey’s voice was scarcely a whisper.

“To be more precise, you have what we call AML.”

“AML?”

“Acute myeloid leukemia. It’s the most common kind of leukemia found in adults, and it’s a little more prevalent in men than women.”

Cancer. Leukemia. The words sounded in all listening ears like the tolls of a death bell, and struck all listening hearts with the force of a sledgehammer. Lance gasped aloud, as did JC. Chris’s jaw just about hit the floor, while Justin whispered, “Holy—”

Joey stared at his doctor, certain that she must be kidding, or that there must be some mistake. When he spoke himself, all he could get out was, “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“You couldn’t be mistaken,” JC said, his voice husky with disbelief.

Dr. Coleman began to leaf through the papers in her lap. “Everything in here says so,” she said, “from the report of the cells taken from Joey’s neck, to the samples of his blood and bone marrow, to his CT scan, to his general list of symptoms. Such symptoms, however, can be linked to a host of other problems—which is why it was necessary to run so many tests to begin with. These tests help to pin down the exact problem now so that we can pursue the appropriate action later.”

“Cancer,” Lance said, so faintly that Joey could barely hear him, despite their closeness. “I don’t believe it!”

“It couldn’t be,” Chris said, shaking his head. “Not him…”

Justin murmured, “I thought it was just some weird virus or something, but this…” He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

Joey felt icy dread spread through him, while questions exploded in his mind like a volley of fireworks. The first rational question he could voice was, “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Unfortunately,” said Dr. Coleman empathetically, “there is no specific cause. While some outside elements and personal habits may indeed play a part, sometimes cancer just happens. That’s the truly terrible thing about it, in my opinion—it can strike anyone of any age at any time.”

This made Joey feel like a target on the wall and someone had scored a bull’s-eye on him.

His next question was too horrible to consider, but it found its way off his tongue anyhow. “Am I going to…I mean, can I be cured of this? You can fix this, can’t you?”

“That depends. While this type of cancer is curable, the chances of a cure for a specific patient depend on certain factors. In your case, you are somewhere in the middle. As of this moment, you have about as much a chance of beating your cancer as it has of beating you. I recommend we get you started on treatment right away, and we shall see how well your body reacts to that treatment. The better your response, the better your odds. I’ve seen patients with well-advanced cancer pull through in almost no time because they responded so quickly.”

The next question came from JC. “How will you treat this?”

“We start with chemotherapy.”

Joey’s heart sank, as did those of his mates. They’d all read and heard enough about chemotherapy to know the nasty effects it brought about; it was supposed to be so potent that it was almost as bad as the actual disease. Joey personally recalled a few accounts of people allowing their cancer to take them because they had deemed it “the lesser of the two evils.”

Dr. Coleman went on, “We’ll move you into the oncology department and assign you an oncologist. You’ll start your doses here until we figure out the combination of drugs that will work best for you. Once we’ve achieved that, we’ll give you a catheter—”

“A what?” Joey cut in.

“That’s a special apparatus to help you receive your chemo so you’re spared from a thousand needle sticks. After that, we’ll send you on your way, and you’ll come back for regular doses. If all goes well, you should be over this in a little over four months.”

Joey didn’t like the idea of spending the next four months hooked on bizarre chemicals, to say nothing of the sound of that “should.” He glanced around at the others. Lance was so pale, he looked sickly himself; JC appeared ready to make a serious dent in something, and Justin and Chris had their heads down with their hands covering their faces.

Turning back to Dr. Coleman, Joey asked, “And then what? How will I know if this thing’s gone forever?”

The woman shook her head. “I’m afraid there’s no way of ever knowing, Joey. Even after you complete your rounds, you’ll still have to watch yourself in the ensuing months and years. If you last five years without a relapse, that's when we will consider you officially cancer-free.”

“And if I do fall back?”

“Then you would have to do this all over again—and, I regret to say, your odds of recovery would not be so good.”