One Last Breath

Skylar

Before my 13th birthday, everything in my life had been normal. I was a young girl who had a dream of being a famous dancer, someone who everyone adored and a role model to the generation that had come after me. When I wasn't dancing, I was helping my mom in the kitchen as she cooked. She had taught me a lot and told me that if my dream as a dancer didn't work out, I could be a world renowned chef. That option, too, seemed appealing to me.

Then, I started having pains in my legs and lower body. At first, my mother and I thought that it was just because I had been practicing too long, so we called my teacher and told her that I had to take a day or so off for bed rest. Even though I hated it, I stayed in bed for two days, like my mother had told me to, but nothing helped. Every day, it seemed to just get a little worse.

After those days were up and I still didn't feel any better, I was taken to my doctor, who took blood and other such things so that he could run many tests to figure out what was wrong with me. A week later, I was diagnosed with Becker's Muscular Dystrophy. A short summary was told to me and my parents about the disease, and I figured out on my own that there was no way I could achieve my dream as a dancer.

My illness is rare in itself, but the fact that I, as a female, had been diagnosed seemed to be a medical abnormality; this disease usually only struck men with a family history of it. We dug deep into our family history and found that my great-grandmother on my father's side was a known carrier, but none of the males had showed any symptoms.

I was lucky enough to gain this gene.

Ever since the big reveal, my parents started to make everything safer for me. They instantly cancelled my dancing lessons, and no matter how much I wanted to, I didn't argue with them. I knew that exerting my body any more than it needed to be wouldn't help, because my muscles were deteriorating slowly every day.

This stupid sickness only continued to ruin my life after that point. Not only had it taken away my future, but my friends as well. The ones that were closest to me could only put up with my changing life for so long. We were kids, and we liked to play around roughly. When they were told that they all had to be careful when playing with me, our relationship started to fall apart. By the time we reached high school, I no longer had friends. Everyone knew of the baggage that came with me, and every student made sure to avoid me.

Somehow, I made it through those four years of hell, but just barely. Sure, I may not have had any friends, but I had my family, and they were always there for me. I was probably closer to my parents than any other teenager in the world, but when they're all you have, it happens.

Around my 19th birthday, the symptoms of the muscular dystrophy seemed to speed up. I started having more and more accidents out in town and around the house. My balance had become worse, and sometimes I just fell to the ground for no reason at all when my muscles just gave up.

My mother and father thought I would be a danger to myself if I stayed home, so they put me into a special hospital called a hospice. It was a place where people with fatal diseases came to spend the last part of their lives. Fortunately, I was placed on a floor where I was surrounded by people that would live longer than six months.

But every time one of my 'friends' didn't come around anymore, I knew that death was closer for us then it should have been. It reminded me that at some point, I was going to die because of this.

Because Becker's Muscular Dystrophy has no cure.

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"All I'm saying is that we never have any good looking men come through here. You always see on TV how the doctors are extremely sexy, but it's not like that here. We just have old men and women as our caretakers. We don't even have any hot patients."

I rolled my grey eyes at what Julia was saying and gave her a look. "Julia, 40 is not old, it's middle aged. And, what can you expect? Medical school takes a long time to complete, so by the time they get out into the world and get some experience, they come here way older than we are."

"I'm just saying, I want a little eye candy going around here. If I go without a good looking man any longer, Brandon might start looking more and more appealing."

We both giggled together as we lay in bed. Julia was one of my really good friends here, and I was lucky to have her. We both had lived almost the exact same life, losing her friends because she was just as fragile as I was. No, Julia didn't have muscular dystrophy, but she did have an illness that made her bones brittle and easy to break.

She had been here longer than I had, and welcomed me with open arms. It seemed like we had been friends forever, though we had only known each other for a couple months.

"When is your family going to come visit you?" I asked her, twirling a piece of my hair around my finger.

"I think they said they were coming to see me Thursday? I'm not sure, sometime this week. Maybe, if I ask, they'll bring my really cute neighbor with them. We had this thing going on-"

"Julia!" I laughed, cutting her off, "I swear, all you talk about is boys. You're making me go crazy."

She made a face and spit her tongue out at me, before she could say anything, we heard the shuffling of the doctor's shoes. Quickly, the girl scurried out of my bed and into her own. Since we were both 'fragile', we weren't really supposed to be talking and gossiping on the same bed. But, that had never really stopped us.

She covered her small legs with her blankets just as the small group walked through the door and we both put innocent smiles on our faces. We both noticed a new face in the group, and from the corner of my eyes, I saw Julia's face light up. I had to suppress a burst of laughter as they came closer.

"Good afternoon girls."

"Good afternoon Dr. Mutter," the two of us said in unison.

"Miss. Arkin, we wanted to inform you that Dr. Frant has decided to leave our wonderful establishment to help another hospital in need. Because of this, we have a new opening for your doctor."

My eyes shifted to the young and handsome face of the new man. I could read his name tag from here, but all it said was "Doctor McKnight". After familiarizing myself with the man, I turned back to Dr. Mutter.

"So, Dr. McKnight here is going to work in her place. We're hoping that he can help you even more than Frant."

McKnight came a little closer and smiled at me, causing dimples to form on both sides of his face. He then reached out his hand to shake my own.

"You can call me Noah."

I nodded and shook his hand, smiling myself. "And you can call me Skylar."