Status: Completed! Sequel up soon

Hospital Beds and Memories

Why Can't Guys Think Of Good Surprises?

I sat in the doctor’s office, uncomfortable like never before. The same old doctor who gave me the bad news at the very beginning was flipping through my file once again, occasionally nodding and sometimes shaking his head side to side. He probably didn’t remember me. All I was was another patient, mixed in with those hundreds of others. I wasn’t some special case. Sure, I managed to beat my cancer even though nobody thought I could, but that happened quite often. He didn’t even seem to care much that they got to try out their new treatment on me and that it had gone ok. Maybe the process wasn’t done yet. I was just another person who he got assigned.

His office still felt as cold and uncomfortable as the first day I walked in here. All the model blood cells still stood on the desk, the posters still as bland and distant as before. This wasn’t the place you wanted to hear that you were going to die. But it happened to so many people, me included. Their ghosts still hung around, whispering dangerous encouragements of bad thoughts. A place like this shouldn’t be so inhospitable. Just a bit of color, or just a beautiful plant would be able to do so much. I had had enough of these monotone whites and too bright lights. All I wanted was to be out of here, and as soon as possible.

But first they needed to find a donor.

Jack wasn’t here with me, only making the entire place feel empty. They had a band meeting, discussing the idea of making new music and going back on tour. It was more important than the appointment I had here, or so I told him. He seemed reluctant at first, but eventually dropped it. Somehow he had managed to change his mind quickly, leaving me all alone for the first time since everything happened. I was used to him pushing me until I agreed to let him tag along everywhere, but nothing like that happened this time. He was actually gone, doing something that was important for me. This was one of the most appointments I was going to have, determining if I was actually going to survive or not.

I guess I was alone for it.

“So, I think we should just get started, shouldn’t we?” The doctor smiled, looking up from my file, only taking a very quick glance at the empty chair beside me. Maybe he did know about me and that Jack was always around. Maybe he was just as confused as my heart was.

“Yeah,” I mumbled quietly and nodded my head, not wanting to acknowledge that I was here all alone.

“I’m assuming you’ve already been brought up to date with your treatment,” he told me, using more hand gestures than a normal person would, holding a pen between his fore- and middle finger, “you’re having an Ablative Allogeneic Transplant. We gave you very high dosages of chemotherapy and radiation, killing off the cancer and also all of the remaining bone marrow. Now, to compensate for this, we need a donor to give you new stem cells, but this can be a dangerous process. So, your donor need to have genes a lot like your own--”

The door opened quietly as somebody jogged in, taking off their jacket and hanging it over the chair next to mine before sitting down. My eyes went wide, not having expected anybody to be here with me, let alone him. Was this why Jack was so ok with leaving me? Just so he could surprise me with this?

“Sorry I’m late, traffic’s pretty crazy out there. I guess it’s easier to get here if you basically live in a hospital room down the hall.” Cam nudged me, giving me a big out-of-breath smile. “Did I miss anything important?”

“Just explaining the basics, but I was just getting to the donor part, so it’s good you could make it for this.” The doctor nodded at my brother, quickly reaching over to give him a firm handshake.

“Good, because I would prefer to know what I’m getting myself into.”

Wait. Cam was going to be the one donating stem cells to me? He was the one who was going to finalize my treatment? Nobody told me anything about this. Never had I ever heard anybody mention anything, not even the mere idea of asking my own twin brother to do this for me. This was just so sudden. I wanted to scream at him for never telling me this while I thought he was going to be over somewhere else in the world, but I was too glad to see a familiar face.

“So, I’ll just get right into it. You’re going to be under general anesthesia,” he started explain the pretty chilling procedure to Cam, “this means that you won’t be aware of what’s going on nor will you feel any pain. We will remove the bone marrow from the back of your hip bones until we have enough to make Ireland, here, better. Then, the stems cells will be delivered to your bloodstream,” he now started directing the explanation towards me, “through a tube called a Central Venous Catheter. So, basically it will be like a blood transfusion. The whole transplant shouldn’t take too long, the time after when we have to monitor you will take a little while longer however. But, since we will be retrieving the bone marrow today, you should be out of here by the end of the month.”

“Today?!” I gasped and looked at Cam, “why haven’t I been told anything about this!”

He chuckled awkwardly, raising his hands up slowly. “Surprise?”

----

I was in my hospital bed, biting my nails knowing that Cam was soon going to be in one of the rooms further down. While he was brought to the operation room, I was sent back to where I had been staying for way too long. Going with him would mean a larger risk on infection, not just for him, but for me as well. Especially for me, actually, since we had to go through a more public part of the hospital to get to those rooms. I couldn't stand knowing that he was out, being poked my needles for my good. Sure, I knew that nothing much could go wrong. But what if it was all for nothing? What if his cells weren’t compatible with mine even though they had already done some tests? What if the whole treatment didn’t work and I was going to die anyway? It would all have been a waste. Everything this hospital and Cameron and Jack had done for me would go to waste.

Not being able to calm my nerves, I dialled Jack number, not caring how important the matter they could possibly be discussing was. Oh, who was I kidding, it was All Time Low, it rarely got that serious, especially with Jack around. The phone rang for a while and I was about to hang up when it was finally answered.

“Hey, you’re on speakerphone, so don’t say anything inappropriate,” Jack voice sounded through my device, some noise surrounding him.

“You’re an idiot,” I deadpanned. I didn’t mind that there were other people hearing this. I still thought he was being an idiot, maybe the others would agree with me.

He giggled, not understanding my seriousness, “what?”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” I said sternly, hoping he would get my message this time.

It suddenly went very quiet on the other side, before there was some quiet ‘ooh’-ing from who I suspected to be Alex, teasing Jack about me being mad at him. It was nothing to laugh about, however. I wasn’t just going to act like nothing was going on for his sake.

“And don’t start acting like you’re innocent and don’t know what you’re talking about, because I know for a fact that you do.” I continued after there was still no response.

Jack sighed, knowing there was no way out of this. “Just wait a second, let me put my guitar away and then we can--”

I interrupted him. “That’s not going to work, because I have to go to another department in a couple of minutes. You know, it’s a nice surprise to not tell me that my brother is here to visit me. Visit me, Jack, not come here for an operation! What type of fucked up surprise it that supposed to be?!”

“That is pretty fucked up,” Rian agreed, also being there to listen in on our conversation

There was some shuffling around as Jack started talking again. “Your brother was supposed to be there before your appointment and explain everything. Didn’t he do that?”

“Are you really counting on my brother being on time? Cause he definitely wasn’t. He was actually late, thank you very much.”

“Okay, I’m out of the room now. I’m sorry, I probably should have told you and not relied on everything going exactly according to plan. I’m not even going to try to win that argument. I just have one question, though. Are you mad at me right now because you’re actually mad or just because you’re afraid something will go wrong?”

I was about to tell him how absurd he was being, reading to continue being annoyed with him, but when I opened my mouth, I suddenly realised that he was actually right. Slowly, I closed my mouth again and sighed loudly. Jack knew me too well. Often it was a blessing, but it was definitely a curse as well. I didn’t like the fact that he could read me no matter what was going on and how hard I tried to hide it.

“Exactly,” Jack continued when he realised I was not going to say anything back, “so, stop worrying. The doctors know what they're doing. Your brother is going to be fine, maybe he'll wake up loopy and say some weird funny shit, which you should really take a video of, and you’re going to be fine as well. In no time you’re going to be doing much better and you’ll be able to start living your life again. We just have to go through this. In a couple of hours I’ll be there with you again and I’ll be there when they start poking you with needles again. I love you, I promise it will all be ok.”

“I love you too,” I whispered back so he could barely hear it.

“What was that?” His smile was evident in his voice, knowing what I had said but just wanting to hear it again.

“I love you too,” I repeated, adding an annoyed groan.

“Now go take that video for me, because it’s going to be hilarious!” He said in a sing-song voice.

And it really was.