Speedy messengers, all carrying oxygen to parts of someone else's body. In contrast, mine looked about as densely packed as a political headquarters two hours after the candidate has conceded. "This is treatable, right?" I asked him. More like I was telling him. "It's treatable, Lindsay," Orenthaler said, after a pause. "But it's serious." A week ago, I had come in simply because my eyes were runny and blotchy and I'd discovered some blood in my panties and every day by three I was suddenly feeling like some iron-deficient gnome was inside me siphoning off my energy. Me, of the regular double shifts and fourteen-hour days. Six weeks' accrued vacation. "How serious are we talking about?" I asked, my voice catching. "Red blood cells are vital to the body's process of oxygenation," Orenthaler began to explain. "Hemopoiesis, the formation of blood cells in the bone marrow." "Dr. Roy, this isn't a medical conference. How serious are we talking about?" "What is it you want to hear, Lindsay? Diagnosis or possibility?" "I want to hear the truth." Orenthaler nodded. He got up and came around the desk and took my hand. "Then here's the truth, Lindsay. What you have is life threatening." "Life threatening?" My heart stopped. My throat was as dry as parchment. "Fatal, Lindsay."

Chapter4

THE COLD, BLUNT SOUND of the word hit me like a hollow-point shell between the eyes. Fatal, Lindsay. I waited for Dr. Roy to tell me this was all some kind of sick joke. That he had my tests mixed up with someone else's. "I want to send you to a hematologist, Lindsay," Orenthaler went on. "Like a lot of diseases, there are stages. Stage one is when there's a mild depletion of cells. It can be treated with monthly transfusions.