My family has been hit hard by cancer, so maybe that’s why I often think of a future where it’s been vanquished for good. Before that future is realized, there may be preliminary measures that are taken; measures that eradicate cancer but at a high price. The following story, which for now must be seen as science fiction, envisions one such measure.

TRANSFERENCE

The doctor pushed the piece of paper toward him and gave a smile that he thought seemed a trifle phony.

“It’s our standard waiver form,” she said. “Basically, it says the procedure we’ll do is experimental, and we can’t guarantee its success.”

The man frowned. “Experimental meaning I’m the first one?”

The doctor’s smile broadened but still seemed phony. “No, no, not the first.”

“How many times have you tried it before?”

The doctor tapped on an iPad and peered at the screen. “Let’s see, you’ll be our twenty-fourth subject.”

“And how many times did the procedure succeed with the other 23?”

The doctor’s fingers ran across the iPad again. “Twelve times with one test result still pending.”

Not much better than 50-50 the man thought. Still, it’s not as if there’s anything better.

“We’ll need your signature at the bottom,” the doctor said. “Once we have that, we’ll start prepping you and the patient.”

The man signed the waiver and pushed it back toward the doctor. She plucked it off the counter and pointed to a small closet behind him. “Remove all of your clothing down to your underwear and put on one of the gowns in there. We’ll be bringing in a gurney for you in just a few minutes.”

“Before you go, doc, can you give me some idea of how this treatment works?”

“Well, through gene splicing, we’ve developed a microbe that has the ability to draw diseased cells to it. We put this microbe into your blood stream and then transfer it to the patient in the same way we would do a blood transfusion between the two of you. Once the microbe draws the disease to it, we re-route both the microbe and the disease out of the patient and back into the host.”

“The host – that’s me, isn’t it?”

“Yes, if everything goes right, both the disease and the microbe will end up in your body and the patient will be cured.”

“Cured.” The man let the word roll slowly out of his mouth. “I like the way that sounds. Let’s do this.”

Thirty minutes later, the man lay on a gurney with an IV running out of his arm and under a curtain to where, he assumed, the patient lay with a similar tube in her arm. If everything worked the way the doctor said, the disease that currently ate away at her body would soon be eating away at his. And unlike the patient, he couldn’t transfer the disease out of his body to another host, even if he could find one. The fifth paragraph of the waiver document he just signed made that clear: The transference procedure can be performed only once; therefore, if you, the host, contract the disease, standard treatments will be the only option to prolonging your life.

Prolonging. That word didn’t have the positive ring that cure did. But what were the choices? As healthy blood coursed out of his veins – or maybe by now diseased blood was coming in – he thought about his life. At 73, he wasn’t especially old. Even so he had enjoyed all the best things that life had to offer – a rewarding career, the love of a devoted wife, the adoration of children and grandchildren, the opportunity to travel and learn about this complicated, contradictory world. He’d run a marathon, climbed a mountain, canoed through Canada, and written a book. He’d even saved a life once, rescuing a drowning boy who had fallen into the deep end of a swimming pool. The person on the other side of the curtain wasn’t drowning but she needed to be rescued every bit as much as the boy. Time would tell if he could be a life saver one more time.

A week later, the man found himself relaxing in a hospital bed. In front of him, a crumpled newspaper lay on a tray along with several plates of half-eaten food. By the window, roses, carnations, and lilies sprang from a row of vases.

The door opened and the doctor came in. This time her smile seemed genuine. “Good news. The procedure was a success. You’ve got cancer.”

The man nodded. “I thought so, just from the way I’ve been feeling since getting here.”

“We’re going to start you on chemo tomorrow morning. After that, well…”

The doctor didn’t have to finish her sentence. He knew his time was short now. A year at best, probably less.

“I think you have some visitors outside,” she added, “so I’ll come back later with some information on what we’ll be doing tomorrow and in the days ahead.”

“Fine,” the man said. “I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

The doctor left and a few minutes later, the man’s daughter and granddaughter came through the door. The woman’s eyes showed worry but also relief. “You have cancer, don’t you, Dad?”

“Yes, my first treatment is tomorrow and I’m sure there’ll be others after that.”

The seven-year-old granddaughter rushed toward the bed and threw her arms around the man’s neck. “I don’t want you to have cancer,” she said, her mouth curving down.

“I don’t want it either,” the man replied. “But at least now, sweetheart, you don’t have it.”