16 Years after.."Darling, are you okay? What is the matter?"
Luo Fei saw his wife grimace in pain on the bed the two shared, Luo Xue was in a purple frilly nightgown while clutching her belly tossing from side to side in pain.
"My...My..Stomach...it"s...killing...me!"
Luo Fei tried to carry is wife from the bed, but his aged back got in the way from being able to lift her up.
"Liena! Liena!"
Raising his voice, Luo Fei called out to his granddaughter from his room.
"Yes grandpa!"
The sound of door opening and shutting filtered through the walls. The door to the room finally opened with a teenage girl standing at the door.
"Yes grandpa?"
It was after she spoke did she realize that her grandmother was on the bed writhing in pain.
"What is wrong with grandma?! Grandma?!"
Sheng Liena ran to her grandmother"s side, as the two struggled to get her from the bed.
"We have to get her to the car outside to see a doctor, she keeps holding her stomach."
The grandfather of the teenage girl explained what he thought to be wrong with his wife, the two of them staggered with the older woman at the middle, out of the bedroom.
Luo Fei s.n.a.t.c.hed his car keys from the center table at the living room, as the three of them made their way out into the car, heading for HuaQu Hospital.
The drive took about ten minutes, a black car pulled into the hospital parking lot very close to where the emergency room was located.
Both Sheng Liena and her grandfather got out from the front seat of the car to open the backseat door where a Luo Xue slump across the car seat.
"Liena, hold from this side."
Luo Fei directed his granddaughter on how they should carry his wife out of the car into the emergency room. The two of them staggered inside with Luo Xue at the center.
"Help!"
Sheng Liena shouted at no one in particular, the moment they walked into the brightly lit unit on the first floor of the hospital. Doctors and nurses briskly walked from one end of the room to the other and out of the room. A chaotic scene met them on getting in, there was blood on the floor, people screaming their head off and crying, loud arguments bounced from different angles.
"Yes?"
A nurse in a uniform of white short sleeved blouse and green pants stopped to ask them if they needed any a.s.sistance.
"My wife woke up, complaining of pain in her stomach!"
Sweat dotted the forehead of both Sheng Liena and Luo Fei, while struggling to maintaining their hold at the middle.
"Come this way."
They both followed the nurse to a bed at the center of the room, where Luo Xue was placed on it, before the nurse then turned to ask which of them was the legal guardian of the woman they brought into the hospital.
"I am her husband, Liena is both our grandchild."
Luo Fei pointed a hand to his chest to let the nurse know that they were both the legal guardian of Luo Xue.
"Which of you would like to check her in at the desk, so that a doctor can attention to her?"
"I"ll go!"
Luo Fei raised his hand as the two walked out of the s.p.a.ce where Luo Xue was tossing on the bed with a hand on her abdomen. Tear silently rolled down the face of Sheng Liena, as she watched her grandmother, unable to do anything to stop her pain.
"Luo Fei handed his ID card and credit card and insurance information to the billing department on the emergency unit floor, they asked him the details of his wife.
"Where is your wife"s ID?"
"I don"t have it with me, it"s at home, I forgot to bring it when rus.h.i.+ng to the hospital."
In just his grey pajamas and flip flops, Luo Fei stood in front of two women dressed in a uniform of deep blue blouse and pant, pinned to the top was a silver name tag in black print.
"Do you have her national security number?"
"Yes, just a moment."
Not the type to know a number off hand except those of his wife and daughter"s phone number. Luo Fei pulled out his phone from his pajamas pocket and scrolled to where he saved his wife"s national security number as "XSN" reading it out to them.
It was a small cubicle with two desktops and printers, photocopiers, a phone and other office essentials.
"I need you to sign here. Here"s a pen."
A copy of his receipt was given to him to sign and the admission paperwork. Luo Fei took the form and receipt reading through and signing on the places where he needed to sign, filling in his wife"s information.
"Is her name Luo Xue?"
The clerk asked the man in front of her with an impa.s.sive look on her face, while her colleague was working on the other system.
"Yes!"
When Luo Fei provided his wife"s national security number, the hospital"s computer system would automatically pull the information that was on national database pertaining to any delinquencies or fraud and anything that was remotely related to the person.
"Your wife is a Judge?!"
"Yes she is."
The tone of the clerk changed when she knew whom she was handling, which became more friendlier. The man noticed the change, but chose not to point it out.
"Here you go Sir!"
"Thanks you."
Luo Fei took the copy of the forms he filled and the receipt from the clerk.
"A doctor would be there to see you, have a nice evening Sir."
"Wis.h.i.+ng you the same."
Luo Fei walked back to where he left his wife and granddaughter, when he got there,, a doctor was already attending to her.
"Good evening."
The doctor exchanged greetings with Luo Fei, before resuming what he was doing, which was checking the body of the woman with his stethoscope and reading the vital signs from the monitor. After a while, the doctor raised his head to ask Luo Fei about his wife, who repeated the same thing as what he said to the nurse he met earlier on. The staff from the radiology department shown up to take Luo Xue away for a quick x-ray, and brought her back before Luo Fei came back.
"I need to carry out an x-ray on your wife and have her blood drawn. She doesn"t show look like she is having signs of acute poisoning, but I need to be sure."
"Okay doctor."
"Here is the consent form for a blood work, the nurse would send it to the lab, we should hear something back in a few hours."
Luo Fei took the form the doctor pa.s.sed to him and began filling them. A short while later, the blood drawn was complete and the nurse that saw them too it to the medical lab. He noticed that his wife was no longer writhing in pain, an intravenous line was attached to one hand, while she laid in bed as though she was fast asleep.
The doctor left to attend to other patients, while the two silently watched Luo Xue who lay unconscious on the bed. Three hours later, they saw the doctor that attended to them, walk in their direction, who looked to be in his 40s.
"Mr Luo?"
"Yes!"
"I need to speak to you somewhere private."
Dr Deng pulled the man to the side, inside of him Luo Fei was shaking whose tone caused his heart to race in fear.
"Yes doctor! What is it about my wife that you want to discuss with me?"
"Based on the x-ray result and lab, your wife has stomach malignancy."
"Doctor please explain, what does that mean?"
"Your wife has some tumor growth which is spreading rapidly."
"My wife has stomach cancer?!"
"Yes Mr Luo, she has at the most a year to live. Chemotherapy and radiation may extend her life, but I would count on them too much. The side effects are very severe and many patients have died from the adverse reaction than from the cancer itself. Treatment is optional, but she would be in a lot of pain and the tumor would spread faster, to be exact the cancer cells would spread faster because of the bloodstream and lymphatic system or lymph nodes which it feeds on to grow rapidly and spread to other parts of the body."
"Oh!....."
Luo Fei suddenly lost feeling in his legs, as he fell to the floor from the shocking news of his wife"s health.
"Mr Luo?"
"It"s okay, it"s okay..."
He kept repeating words over and again, which made the doctor know that he was in deep shock. His face became pale while staring into the distance, the doctor watched the man in front of him, looking for any sign that he was going to hurt himself.
"Mr Luo?"
Luo Fei slowly rose from the floor with the help of Dr Deng.
"I will set Mrs Luo up with an oncologist, who would best meet her health needs."
"Whe..n would..it be?"
"The oncologist has gone home for today, but he should be here at seven in the morning, his hours are from seven in the morning to four in the afternoon, because we are a small hospital and rarely have patients with the disease, that is why there is only one doctor that manages the oncology department."
"I understand, is she getting discharged today or tomorrow?"
"Mrs Luo is free to go home today, I will have her discharge papers ready for her to leave as soon as we are done here."
"Thanks you."
The two shook hands before heading back in the direction of Luo Xue"s bed.
"Bye!"
"Bye!"
The doctor went his way, while Luo Fei informed his granddaughter that his wife was ready to go back home. None of the shock from earlier on reflected on the face of Luo Fei, as both he and his grandchild took Luo Xue out of the hospital, after they were cleared to go.
"Grandpa, is grandma going to be okay?"
Luo Fei looked at the face of his granddaughter who sat beside him at the front seat of the car.
"Liena, your grandmother has a hard battle ahead, I would need you to be strong for the both of us."
The teenager looked at the face of her grandfather, the shadows across his face made him look mysterious.
"Did the doctor say that grandma is sick?"
"Your grandma and I would tell you about it at a later time."
Shen Liena could hear the note of finality in the voice of her father, the two of them ran out of the house in just their nightwear, being the teenager that she is, she suddenly became self conscious after he was done speaking.
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Luo Xue carefully made her way out of the room with the help of her husband to eat the breakfast that her granddaughter had made for the family.
"Good morning grandma!"
"Good morning Liena, come here, let grandma give you a hug!"
"I"m too old to be receiving hugs from you!"
Despite saying that, Sheng Liena ran to where her grandmother stood, as the two else each other in a tight hug. After a while they separated, before each took a seat at the dinning table.
"Liena?"
"Yes grandma."
"Your grandfather and I need to discuss something with you."
The couple had discussed at length on how to tell their grandchild that she was dying. They both came to an agreement to let her know, rather than keeping it away from her until the last moment.
"Liena, grandma has cancer."
The teenage girl looked at the eyes of her grandmother, before looking at those of her grandfather, they looked very serious with no hint of playfulness in them. It was right there that Sheng Liena"s world came to a stand still, the one she saw as her mother was leaving her too soon.