Blood And Ashes

Rose

I'm glad I finally knew what I was dealing with.

I had surfed through Google to give me a name for these changes in my body until I saw it boldly written down in that envelope.

I couldn't be mad at my Dad, I would do the same if I was in his position.

If I felt anything, it was fear.

Fear of what my life had become.

Stage 3 and still progressing.

The night I found out I had leukemia, another incident occurred that landed me in the hands of Dr. Myron again.

I showed my father that envelope while he was in the kitchen; he was juicing out oranges to use with our dinner at the moment I stood at the door. his eyes zeroed on the envelope when he saw that I had the truth he had been hiding from me in my hands.

He stopped mid-air to look at the envelope in my hands; the knife used to cut the oranges into two was on his right.

"The day I was admitted to the hospital was the day you knew about my sickness; why didn't you tell me? Why let me know this way.." I melted down, bawling.

My Dad, seeing the way I grieved, rushed to my side. He took the knife with him.

"I was going to tell you, Rose. I couldn't summon up the courage to tell you that you had cancer; I want you to be happy."

"And you think I'm happy, I'm losing my damn mind and my health every day. You don't even know what it feels like and just telling me that I was going to be okay will help, right."

He tried to calm me down but I snapped at him, for unknown reasons.

The knife he held in his hands gave me a nice cut on my left arm as I lifted my arms to prevent myself from my father's embrace. I didn't want him to calm me down.

I wanted to vent. Vent the world for causing me so much pain when all I did was be a good kid.

I didn't deserve it, I thought deadly sickness was only awarded to the wicked ones.

Life isn't fucking fair.

I knew he forgot he had that knife in his hands as I played out everything that happened that day in my head while my Dad and I sat in his truck.

We were on our way to pick up Miss Beatrice and Morris from the airport.

That day, I think I bled out the little amount of blood I was living on.

I was rushed back to City Hospital. The whole entrance of the kitchen where me and my Dad stood was messed up with blood; it even trailed till we got to the truck.

He did everything in his might to stop the blood from gushing but it still did

I passed out.

Journeying back to consciousness a few hours later, my Dad apologized as of he thought he did me bad, said stuff like he does not want to lose me, and all the words of affirmation, healing up the sad emotions dwelling in my fucked up mind.

"Rose, I have been really honest with you. The cancerous cells in your body have accumulated exceedingly, and they are spilling into your blood streams; they are spreading to your other organs slowly; we have to act fast."

He stopped and took a deep breath, his eyes fixed on me. Checking if my facial expression would falter, I was dying inside from what he told me but I didn't let him see the effects of his words.

I looked right back at him with a blank expression.

When I was strong enough to walk, he called me to his office for these brief heart-wrenching talks.

My Dad waited outside. Trust me, he fought to come in there with me, to hold my hands so my life wouldn't melt off as the weak child I had become.

"You lost so much blood from that incident, and we would be doing a blood transfusion on you. We would be doing that frequently actually, to wash off the infected blood." He continued after a failed scrutiny.

"Okay Dr Myron, when would I be getting a blood transfusion? I'm ready now." I said, sitting up to act like I and Dr Myron were talking business.

He smiled when he noticed my composure.

"You have some fighting spirit in you, it's rare to see that in patients of your age."

Oh, you bet.

Mind you, I tried my best to numb the pain I felt from my bandaged wound.

"Well, Miss Rose, the blood transfusion will be in two days; lucky for you, we just had donors, and I've tested your blood; it matches perfectly with most of them."

I sunk back to my seat, letting out a sigh. This is my new reality; I had to embrace it, or how else would I leave with it?

I have heard people miraculously get freed from the chains of cancer, I could be one of those lucky souls.

I believe.

the blood was on the presumed day.

That's why I'd accepted to step out of my house to accompany Dad to get Miss Beatrice from the airport, that's the first reason.

The second one was that I needed an actual person to talk to, Ozzy's company wasn't enough.

I couldn't share my thoughts with it, it was just a cute hairy furred creature I used to ease my depression.

Leaving with Miss Beatrice and Morris would be much more comforting as I could speak to any of them.

Dad's going to be off and on for his work, so he's calling them over.

mostly for Miss Beatrice to look after me, babysit me if I'm being logical.

I'm sure Dad had already told Miss Beatrice of my health.

"Are you done soliloquizing, buttercup?" He asked, eyes still fixed on the road; I saw he's trying to lighten the mood.

Awwn, nice try.

It was mid-afternoon. The ride was a quiet, smooth, and calm one that even helped me zone out on the journey, reminiscing on what had happened the previous week.

"I prefer Roses to buttercups. It's more magnified than the latter."

I got my Dad laughing.

It's my song playing from the infotainment system of my dad's truck.

I turned the volume up, not too high.

I didn't want to hear any more pep talks about cancer patients from Dad; my ears were still bleeding from the speech he made at home before we got on this quiet ride.