One Last Breath

Skylar

“I didn’t think I’d be back here again for a long time,” I sighed, trying to avoid the curious and sad eyes of the familiar hospice. It had been a while since I had last been here, and I wasn’t expecting to come back so soon, even if just for an EKG.

“Neither did I,” Noah replied, his hands firm on the handles of my wheelchair as he pushed me down the hall. Here and there, the two of us managed to get a couple hellos from doctors and patients walking around, but mostly they left us alone.

“Do you think Nicole will be happy to see me?” I asked my doctor, turning my head slightly so I could at least look down at his face. He smiled a small grin at me, only showing a fraction of those dimples.

“I’m sure she will be, but not because of the circumstances.”

I nodded my head and pushed a strand of hair behind my ear, feeling my arm muscles move underneath my skin. It had been three weeks or so since I lost the feeling and motion of my legs, and those three weeks had been filled with visits and talks about how nothing would change. We would adapt to what was going on and make the best out of the time we had.

It helped me that everyone was at least trying to act normal when they came to visit. Anthony was still a brat of a sibling; though he would revert back to the brother I used to know during certain times of the day. My parents seemed to be even getting along better now, focusing their attention on me instead of the petty arguments they could have had with each other. They were showing me just how much I meant to them by putting aside their differences.

Noah and I had the most time to cope with everything, because he was the one that was always by my side. Even when I was with someone else, he was there to take care of me. To everyone else, he was just the dedicated doctor they had known for months.

But to me, he was a caring lover who was helping his partner deal with the pain. And though I never thought the statement true, he said I was helping him deal with all of this in my own way. However I never argued about it, just continued doing what I always had, which seemed to make him smile all that more often.

I think the two of us had just come to the conclusion that things, good or bad, were going to happen. There was nothing we could do to change them, so we might as well live our lives as much as possible before things took a turn downhill. I was happy with my life, something I don’t think I would have been able to say without Noah McKnight by my side.

The man pushed the door to the room open while I wheeled myself in while smiling my usual Skylar smile at the woman I had known for my entire stay at the hospice. Just like Noah had said, the older woman seemed happy to see me, but I could see the hint of sadness behind her crinkled eyes.

“Long time no see, Doc!” I said happily, pushing myself close to her. She let out a chuckle and shook her head at me with that smile finally reaching her eyes.

“It has been in deed, though I would have rather preferred if the visit could have been postponed maybe a little longer.”

“We’ve come to accept that we can’t really do anything about the speed of the dystrophy,” Noah spoke up. Nicole smiled and helped me as I climbed onto the table. She stripped me of my pants and shirt then arranged my legs to her liking before sticking me.

“They’re non-responsive, like I thought they would be,” she sighed, running a hand through her graying hair. “Every now and then you might come across a small electric pulse, but it’s positive that her legs are far gone.”

I nodded, having known that. While not being able to feel my legs months ago had come as a scare to me, this had been more of a small shock. Once I thought it through, I knew what was going on. I had never expected to be this calm about it, but I was.

Next, the doctor moved to my arms, her eyes intently focused on the screen as she read the electric readings on the screen.

“Thankfully, her arms don’t seem to be doing as bad as I thought they would be, but I had been thinking the worst. Since her last test, she’s lost about 10% of her remaining muscle response, but that’s to be expected. Right now, the time of deterioration depends on your body Skylar. If it goes through a dry spell, it could be another two months before things come serious.”

“And if I don’t?” I asked smoothly, though my heart said otherwise. I was waiting for the EKG machine to catch onto my erratic heartbeat, but it didn’t.

“If everything keeps following the same pattern, or if you over exert yourself, it could be a couple of weeks up to a month and a half before your arms fail you.”

Noah

Everything was silent between the two of us as we headed back home into the car that the hospital had let me borrow. One hand was on the wheel while the other held tightly onto Skylar’s hand, smoothing small circles into her skin. Her head was rested against the cool class and her face was turned too far away to see if her eyes were closed or not.

“How do you feel about all of this?” I questioned her softly, squeezing her hand softly for a moment.

“I’m just taking it in stride, letting my brain process everything. I’m fine right now, which is good I guess, but I don’t know if I can give you the same answer later on tonight. I might just over think things and have a panic attack. Or I’ll just continue to be okay with everything.”

I nodded my head, keeping my brown eyes on the road as I drove. We were close to the house, where her father was awaiting the test results. I knew he wasn’t going to take it as well as the two of us had, but I knew that he would try and stay calm, at least for his daughter’s sake.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You already did, but I guess you can ask another one.”

“You’re so annoying!” Skylar laughed, turning to me to show me a sincere, happy smile.

“I know. But yes, you can ask me anything.”

“I’m not so much worried about my arms as I am my lungs. When they can’t respire by themselves and a breathing tube is put down my throat, will it hurt?”

That question showed me just how childlike Skylar still was inside. While she was accepting her fate with no tantrums like a child would and using medical words to describe her position, she was still asking the same thing that all kids seemed to think about. Will it hurt?

“I’ve never had one, so I can’t give you my own personal experience,” I started, “but as a doctor, I can tell you it will more than likely be uncomfortable. A plastic tube isn’t the most ideal thing you want in your body, but you’ll need it.”

She nodded her head at my answer, causing some of her hair to bounce off of her shoulders. Skylar smiled again and laid her head on my shoulder, looking up at me even though I couldn’t look down at her.

“You won’t make fun of me for it, right?”

I grinned to the road, following the pattern that she had made for us, the one where we took everything lightly. The pattern where we forgot we were talking about her premature death.

“Maybe just a little bit.”

“Well, if your get me a blue breathing tube, I think I can take a jibe or two.”