Leo barely spoke.
We made it through the elevator.
Through the hospital lobby.
Into the parking garage.
Then he stopped beside the car.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Am I going to go blind?”
My chest tightened.
“No.”
“You hesitated.”
“I hesitated because I’m choosing my words carefully. I’m not going to lie to you.”
He looked tiny in his oversized NASA hoodie.
So I wrapped my arms around him.
“We caught it. We have treatment. We have specialists. We are going to do everything possible to stop this.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
And I meant it.
What I didn’t know was that the biggest threat to his treatment wouldn’t come from his diagnosis.
It would come from my own family.
Two weeks before the procedure, we had Sunday dinner at Mom’s house.
I told them our final out-of-pocket cost.
“$8,400,” I said.
Mom froze.
“Eight thousand four hundred?”
“Yes.”
“For his eyes?”
I looked at Leo.
Then back at her.
“No, Mother. We’re adding robot knees while he’s under anesthesia.”
Leo nearly spit out his drink.
Vance laughed.
Mom did not.
“But doesn’t he already have glasses?”
Leo slowly looked at me with the expression children use when an adult has said something so astonishingly foolish that they need confirmation they heard correctly.
“Yes,” I said. “He has glasses.”
“So why does he need surgery?”
“Because glasses correct his vision. They don’t stop the disease from changing the shape of his corneas.”
“But he can see with them.”
“He was holding his phone three inches from his face earlier.”
Mom waved that away.
She said $8,400 was absurd when glasses cost a few hundred dollars.
Then Vance nodded.
“She has a point.”
I almost launched myself across the table.
This was the same man who had once spent more than a thousand dollars of my money on podcast equipment for a show that lasted two episodes.
“Thank you, Dr. Vance,” I said. “But considering you once believed sunscreen caused vitamin deficiencies because of a Facebook post, I’m going with the actual surgeon.”
