Chapter 1: Dying

My eyes fluttered open as I made out the piercing beeping of the monitor. Groaning, I struggled to sit up in the scratchy loose hospital gown. The IV in my arm kept pulling against me when I moved, causing me to wince at the excruciating pain it had given me. My eyes searched around the hospital room, hoping for a sign that I wasn’t alone. A purse was sprawled across an aged, torn up visitor's chair, with a wallet dangling out of the bag's mouth. Fortunately, the scattered handbag belonged to my mom, the person I wanted here most of all. Well, the parent I wanted to be with most of all. My selfish father, who left me when I was three years old, was definitely out of the question. 

    "She must have gone… Wait, what time is it?" My newly awaken eyes desperately scanned the clinic's drab room for a clock as I talked to myself. "Oh… it's 12:30 p.m., she went to the cafe to eat some lunch." 

The alarming event of the other day has occurred numerous times before. Though, I'm usually not transported to the Children's Pediatric Hospital in an ambulance from volleyball practice. There are sometimes when I'm fortunate, though. That going unconscious doesn't even happen. Instead, I would catch myself from my frozen position I was falling in before I blacked out. But I'll never know how these frightening moments will turn out, and this time, I wasn't able to stop myself from plummeting to the gym's floor. However, none of that is in my control. These wild, horrific repercussions of an inoperable brain tumor, are in God's hands, not mine. 

I remember September 17, 2015, as if it was yesterday. That day turned my life around, and also shortened it. I was sitting in a patient's room after several MRIs.  That was when I first heard those catastrophic words; I was going to die. The doctor told me my usual, so-told migraines were not migraines at all. But instead, they were from an inoperable brain tumor that would eventually kill me. It has now been six months since that tragic day, and one month over my estimated lifespan. However, that doctor who told me my death day didn't know I was a fighter. That the teenage girl of 15 years, who at that moment, he was describing her fatal future, was going to battle this illness until she breathed her very last breath. 

Stretching, I heard a soft knock on the door, and then the well-known nurse, Susanne, walked in with a full tray of the nasty hospital food. 

"Morning Cali!" Susanne crooned in her cheerful mood as always. 

"Morning Susanne…" I moaned as I propped my feather stuffed pillows behind my back and opened the wooden tray across the bed. There she placed the unwanted lunch that I was to eat. 

"You know pumpkin. We are all praying for you, all of the nurses and doctors. We all pray that you'll find comfort in your last days." Her cheerful tone faded, and her voice slurred into her southern accent that she only used when she was nervous. 

    I struggled to swallow my piece of the rubber textured, saline chicken once she had mentioned that very sentence. I'm Christian, so the part about prayer wasn't bothering me. Instead, what bothered me were the words, "last days." Every time I heard those words, I would choke on my tears. Not because I wasn't used to the fact that I was dying, but it was instead my realization of all the years that I was going to miss in my life. For example, I never was able to have a boyfriend. I'm a sophomore in high school this year, and I haven't once had a relationship. I'll never be able to fulfill the teenage girl's dream of finding true love. 

 

 From my burgundy bag on the white tiled floor, I grab my number two, yellow pencil and baby blue journal. As I started to write about the past day's incident, my pale-faced mother walked into the room with both hands filled. One hand was holding my numerous doctor reports. The other held a cafeteria cup filled to the brim with sweet tea. She seemed anxious, and I couldn't blame her. Her only daughter just fainted in volleyball practice the day before and then escorted to the hospital in an ambulance. When she finally saw me and realized I was alive for once that day, she did her well-known mother-like run towards me.

 

  "Oh, sweetie!" Tears started streaming down her face. "I was scared you weren't going to wake up." Bawling, she threw her smeared makeup face onto my lap in front of her. Not knowing what to do, I reluctantly started to comb my mothers undone, dirty, tangled hair through my fingers.

 

  Sniffing, I state, "Mom you are in a real need of a shower. I'll be fine here alone. Susanne will take good care of me while you're gone." Sighing, she looked up at me with her mascara running eyes. She then sat up and nodded in agreement, and headed to her purse to clean up. She needed a shower urgently, and we both knew that she barely got any rest the night before. You could just look at her face and tell. There were dark, heavy bags underneath her crystal blue, tired eyes, and there was a crease on the left side of her face, which told me that she had slept on her purse that night. But she still didn't seem too convinced about leaving me alone. But then Susanne walked into the room again. And once she saw and smelled my mom, she got right to the point.

 

"Cassandra Johnson. You need to go home right now and take a shower!" She now neither had her accent or her singing voice, but instead a tone mixed with a hint of sarcasm and a lot of sass. "I promise I'll take care of Cali while you're gone. But just do us both a favor and go take a shower and get some sleep." She said this while plugging her nose and fanning the air in front of her. My mom lets out a soft chuckle at that. You could always count on Susanne to make my mom laugh. But that was mostly because over the six months that I had been going to the hospital, Susanne and my mom had become two of the best friends I have ever seen.

Speaking of best friends, I had to talk to Sadie. Sadie Anderson has been my best friend since we were in Kindergarten together. She was at practice when I fainted. The last time she saw me, I was on a stretcher being carried to the awaiting ambulance to take me to the hospital. I had to tell her I was all right. For all I know, she might think I'm dead by now. But I had to wait until my mom was gone. Because every time I talked to a friend, my mom would always cut in on the conversation and take over, as if they were her friends and no longer mine. Thankfully, though, my mom was nearly finished gathering her belongings. At last, Susanne and my mom abandoned the room, leaving me alone in the hospital trundle.