Carefully Optimistic

I have no idea how I've beaten the family to the 12:15 appointment with Dr. Rose, but it's 12:15 now and Dad is the only one sauntering off the elevator towards me.
The air in Dr. Rose's office is considerably lighter than the last time we all filled it. We talk too loudly and inappropriately for being in public before we are ushered in to a small room harboring an eclectic group of chairs. Over an hour goes by before Dr. Rose and his elephant tie finally appear in an impatient room.
Stage IIa. Non-bulky. Favorable.
It isn't in his bone marrow.
Mom, Brendan, and I exhale in unison.
Dr. Rose lays an outline for treatment and answers questions my parents ask. Again, I have no contribution and I get frustrated - my headache rattles. I remember that this is why I always wanted my parents around for adventures such as these - they seem to know what to ask. I assumed it would come with adulthood, and maybe that is true - I'm wrong about being an adult.
After one more jaunt to the sperm bank (an investment that is rather pricey, by the way) and on August 19th, Brendan will start chemo therapy. Stanford V. He will have to go once a week for 12 weeks. After that, he does 3 weeks of radiation treatment - Monday through Friday, 20 minutes a day.
The treatment, Dr. Rose explained, is like the sun melting the snow in a parking lot. The chemo will melt the vast majority of the surface area, but the radiation is to conquer the mountains of snow that the plows have built.
12 weeks of warm days.
3 weeks of direct sunlight.
That should - hopefully - take care of it. Dr. Rose is "carefully optimistic" that the treatment should take care of it.
No one asked what the side effects would be. It was the only question I could think of, and the only question I didn't want to hear the answer to. In the midst of all his rambling I caught Dr. Rose saying that this 12 week treatment once a week makes the side effects worse. That with the alternating schedule of drug types per week, as soon as you recover from the side effects of the first, the side effects of the second come on strong. That a long term consequence of the poisonous treatment can be leukemia - but it's worth the risk.
I'm nervous. I want to get better at this. I'm nervous. And anxious and my head hurts and I feel helpless and nervous. I'm worried - and I don't want to let that on. If I am this scared, how must Brendan be feeling?
We have no choice but to try and be optimistic.
We have no choice other than to lower our shoulders and charge.
For now, the future is in the toxic little hands of the treatment drugs, and the resilience of this disease. All we can do, all I can do I suppose, is stand next to my brother - my little brother - my fucking hero - and straighten his chainmail.

I learned that after I had left, the nurse had come in and warned Brendan of the side effects.
I'm considering losing all of my hair when he loses his.