Live Like You Were Dying Read Online Free

it?” Heather was leaning closer to the edge of her seat and licking her lips, ready to pounce.
    â€œI never meant ‘ignore it.’ Monitor perhaps, but not ignore.” The doctor rotated the pen between his fingers like it was a minibaton. He smiled and looked straight at me. “Mr. Bishop, I don’t pull any punches. Quite frankly, I don’t have any left to pull. What your surgeon advised you is conventional thought, but the one thing that I’ve learned is that convention is worth about a pound of manure. Your lungs have been through a trauma that nearly cost you your life. You’re still mending . . . this idea of yet another surgery so soon . . . well . . .”
    â€œWhat about treatments?” I asked.
    â€œThat’s a fair question,” the doctor said. “But I’m not an oncologist. I’m a pulmonologist. The best advice I can give you is, whatever action you decide to take should be your call, not a physician’s.”
    â€œAny other people with cases like mine?”
    â€œI’ve seen patients who have had similar cases, yes. Some ended up having benign tumors that occur in embryonic tissue, meaning that they’ve always been there. Others ended up having a malignancy. I guess my question is, how is this X-ray on my desk going to change the outcome?”
    â€œUh, now, I don’t mean any disrespect by saying this, but isn’t that why I’m paying you?” I asked.
    The doctor tipped the pen toward me and smiled. “No disrespect taken. Better phrased, what if you never had the accident? What if you never knew that you had this mass? What would you be doing differently?”
    He made notations in my file but never gave me the opportunity to answer his question. It was a homework type of question, and I studied on it day and night. Try as I might to forget it, the sound of this doctor’s voice never left my mind.
    That night I dreamed that an alien-looking creature the size of one of Malley’s old Barbie dolls ripped through my skin and ran away before I could ask it why it had invaded me in the first place. Jolted awake and covered in sweat, I rolled over and groaned. Pain shot through my chest, but I still managed to put my arm around Heather. She and Malley were my world. The spot, whatever it may be, was helping me to realize that more now than ever before.
    The morning after my visit with the lung doctor, decisions fit for a four-year-old, such as what cereal to eat in the morning, seemed complicated. What would the spot in my chest want to eat? Would oat bran drive it from my body, or would a hefty batch of sugarcoated nuggets do the trick? I finished a huge bowl of both cereals and heard a car in the driveway. From the kitchen window, I saw Jay Beckett close the door of his black Range Rover.
    Jay sat across from me in my easy chair while I fought the pain of sitting upright against the sofa. His wire-rimmed glasses sloped down his slightly crooked nose, and he didn’t waste any time by pushing them back up. “So, it’s going good, huh?” Jay kept placing the cup of coffee back and forth on the table. Finally, he settled for putting the mug down and leaned over like a defensive center ready to strike. “Pretty good,” I said, nodding in hopes that he would believe the lie.
    â€œI tell you something: the guys down at the mill are having a time. I mean, a devil of a time trying to get those repairs done on schedule without you.”
    I knew I would feel it sooner or later, and there it was: guilt. For the past twenty years I’d given heart and soul to that mill, without any memorable vacation to speak of, and after ten days away, I was getting antsy. The mill needed me. Jay stared at me over the top of his glasses, seeming to know exactly what I was thinking.
    â€œDon’t you worry about a thing. We want you well . . . yes sir. We take care of our people. You know that.”
    â€œI