A road less lonely

"Good luck Babe, you don't need it though, you've got this" Bianca playfully shoved Tyler.

"I don't understand why you're not coming along like we planned. I'm really going to miss you, and I don't like leaving you here alone while you not feeling well."

"I would just be an unnecessary distraction, and I have wedding stuff to do anyway, so it's better that I stay here, it just makes more sense."  Bianca kissed Tyler and he climbed into his sedan, an exaggerated pout on his perfect face.  She had planned to spend the next several days in Jackson with Tyler because the bar was a two day exam and administered there, he had booked them a nice suite and Bianca had looked forward to time alone with him and away from everything in Oxford.  But his time away was an ideal time to see the gynecologist and oncologist Mr. Holt had referred her to.

The presence of cancer was evident in the blood tests, the lesions on her cervix the most immediately  threatening.  Mr. Holt had explained that he had never seen anything like this before, not in someone so young and never during a pregnancy.  He told her that her mother's fate wasn't necessarily her own but her heredity was a force to be reckoned with. That if treatment could begin immediately, there was a chance that the cancer wouldn't invade her lymphatic system if it hadn't already , that a hysterectomy may be the end of the ordeal.  But the baby, well the "embryo" Mr. Holt  kept calling it, it would be lost with any aggressive attempt to stop the progression of the disease. Minimal management, the options Bianca was considering currently, still posed a risk to the pregnancy and a considerable threat to the progression of the disease and her life.   At the very least, Bianca's cervix would  need to be "scraped" of the cancerous lesions in an attempt  to keep the cancer somewhat controlled.  Scraping a cervix, the apparatus holding the uterus closed, could result in the loss of the baby as well.   There was fear and devastation  everywhere Bianca looked.

Barbara had not spoken to her since Bufford had shut her down.  Tyler was under the impression that Bianca was having a little more than rough menstruation. Bianca was Carrying a child that may not survive this, or even if it did, may ultimately  mean the end of Bianca. The burden of it all was so heavy upon her that she had transcended  reality and crossed over into blind faith.  It wasn't a decision she was able to make, but  the result of a mortal ambush she had no control over. 

She was starring into her future and could see everything and nothing all at once.   In one vision she and Tyler were on the floor helping a baby walk between them, another vision Tyler was holding the baby while standing over a pale and faded version of Bianca in her hospice bed while she slowly passed away the way her mother had. The last visual she could conjure  was of just Tyler, no baby, no Bianca, just her lawyer prince of oxford all alone.  They were very conflicting visions, and none seemed any more or less likely than the other.  She had no answers now, and it was likely that any answers that would surface about her situation would only complicate things further.

Bianca yearned to tell Tyler what was happening, she couldn't do as her Mother had done and kept it quiet until she was nearly on her death bed.  It wasn't fair to Tyler to have to live through that misery, he could walk away from all of this right now and have a charmed life, one that wouldn't bear the wounds of losing love to cancer, a wound Bianca had been afflicted with and would never wish on anyone she loved, let alone be the cause of. 

It was difficult to think about Tyler this way when just days ago he was her everything her partner.  Now she was thinking of him as a possible casualty of her heredity.

Bianca was in a lonely place, she had the unfortunate privilege to know exactly what cancer could do, The memories associated with her experience, however, we're not as isolated Bianca had shared the endeavor with someone else.  She knew she couldn't navigate this alone, not even for a short while. It was time.

Bianca pulled her phone from her back pocket and dialed her father's number.