All Things Fall Apart

Dr. Brintall: Deon, I'm not supposed to do this. I'm required to refer you to the oncology team. Is your family going to be here soon?

Deon: It's just me this time. Look, I started to gain my weight back. I was feeling good... and my hand just seized up. Look, you're the only one who's been straight with us, Doc. Just tell me the truth.

Dr. Brintall: New MRI tests show that... the cancer's come back.

Deon: Fuck.

Dr. Brintall: You got a metastatic tumor in your brain that's appeared. It's right above the motor cortex, and that's what's affecting your hands.

Deon: I've 9,000 dollars left to my name, Doc. Can't drag my family into this again.

Dr. Brintall: Come on. Come with me.

Dr. Brintall: Isn't it fucking ironic? I'm a cancer doctor but I enjoy second hand smoke. I quit a year ago but I still like coming out here. I figure as long as I'm not lighting up, it doesn't count. Fuck it.

Deon: I don't understand, Doc. I did all the treatments. What's causing it?

Dr. Brintall: I don't know. I mean, environments, cigarettes, genetics, the sun. I mean, there's hundreds and hundreds of reasons. It's impossible to pinpoint just one, Deon. Understand? Look, when I was a resident, there was a patient that I'll never forget. She and her husband saved for years 'cause they wanted to take a trip to Africa to see the silver back gorillas in the Congo. We saw her tests. We knew that any treatment that we gave her would just be postponing the inevitable. I mean she was dying. She was riddled with cancer. I wanted to tell her, we all wanted to tell her, but the hospital's policy was pursue a very aggressive and expensive series of treatments regardless of the fact that her insurance dropped her. Her husband lost everything. Their house, the savings, he never got to take that trip with his wife. She died a few months later. Right there. In this hospital. Look, you came to me because I've been straight with you, right?

Deon: Yeah.

Dr. Brintall: Okay. Here it is. The 9,000 dollars is not gonna go very far. This costs upwards to 100,000 dollars, and even that's gonna buy you a few months, four months, five months.

Deon: And I die anyway?

Dr. Brintall: I'm telling you... I'm telling you what the tests are telling me, alright? There's always hope. But you can never run again. There's no athletics, that's over. Look, the question is... do you wanna do it in there... with those machines attached to you? Or do you want to do it in your own terms? That's the question.