Status: Completed! Sequel up soon

Hospital Beds and Memories

They All Say That It Will Be Fine

I was still in the hospital, being observed closely by the nurses to see if anything was going wrong with the stem cell transplant. I was given the transplant a day after they had retrieved the bone marrow from Cam. Just like with the many chemo sessions I had, I was given an IV, however this time it gave me something that was supposed to build up new cells rather than kill them off. Refreshing, but still painful. Nobody liked a needle stuck in their vein for a long time. But if it was supposed to make me better in the long run, then I was going to deal with.

And it actually seemed like everything was going to go smoothly, that I wasn’t even going to get any side effects. It was quite a logical way to think because it had been a week and I felt like I was ready to get out of this hospital and go back home, sleeping in my own bed with Jack, and Taco at our feet. I really couldn’t wait for everything to be back to normal. I would always have to be careful and not shrug off symptoms as nothing, but at least I wasn’t stuck in a goddamn hospital the entire time.

However, something switched that day. Once again, I was sleeping in for much longer, but nobody seemed to think much of it. The day before, I had been fine, so they assumed it was just me being tired and trying to catch up on sleep. But when I woke up in what used to be my warm bed, I felt cold, really cold. I tried pulling my duvet up to my chin to keep more heat in, but I was still shivering. It was like I was locked outside, powdery white snow around me, while I was in just some jeans and a T-shirt.

“Hey, you’re awake.” Jack smiled, noticing my stirring.

I snuggled further into the mattress, pulling the covers around me tighter, and grumbled, “I’m cold.”

“I thought it was pretty warm in here,” another voice said somewhere else from the room. I actually couldn’t immediately work out who it was, not having expected that person to be here.

I peeked open one eye and saw both Alex and Lisa sitting close to the end of my bed. Why did nobody warn me anymore that there were people coming? First, my brother suddenly appeared, and now these two. It wasn’t that I hated people visiting, I just liked to be able to prepare myself for it. You know, to think of the answers to any possible generic questions they had, to make sure I wouldn’t embarrass myself, or just simply so I could honestly say that I didn’t want any company. There were times that I felt like complete shit and my mom would be fussing about things and I just couldn’t deal with it. Alex and Lisa wouldn’t do that, but what if I had said something embarrassing or did something embarrassing? I would never let myself live that down.

“Still cold,” I mumbled as I looked at Alex who had made the comment. While he might have been fine, I actually felt like my lips were going to go blue at any moment.

“Have my beanie.” Jack took his off and reached out to put it over my still bald head, making it cover the top of my ears and nearly cover my eyes. He frowned when his fingers accidentally touched the sweaty skin on my forehead. “You feel hot, I think you might have a fever.”

“I’m cold though.” I contradicted, reached out to touch his hand so he could feel my cold clammy hands.

He quickly took his hand out of my grasp and let out a shriek, “don’t do that, your hands are cold!”

I smirked, a plan brewing in my head, and reached out for him again. This time I did not only touch his hand, but also went for the face and neck. I really was lucky to no longer be needing an IV anymore, or I would have so managed to rip one out. Jack let out another yelp, jumping onto his chair so I couldn’t get close to him anymore. But he didn’t need to worry, because I suddenly felt very nauseous and retracted back into my bed, trying to stop my stomach from spinning. What ever was going to happen, I was not going to throw up. If it had just been Jack here, I wouldn’t have minded, but there was no way I wanted to do it in front of Alex and Lisa.

A nurse came in, giving Jack a questioning look since he was still standing on the chair like he had just seen a mouse. “This is not the first time I’ve seen you doing that.”

“Last time was because I was putting up halloween decorations!” Jack defended, slowly getting back down, sitting like a normal person again.

‘Yes, but that wasn’t the first time either,” she chuckled, holding her clipboard in one hand and coming up to me to check whatever they had to check this time. Since Jack and I had been here for so long, most of the nurses knew us on a personal level, being able to joke around with us and also feeling bad if there was any bad news, but also ecstatic when there was some good news.

“So, how are you feeling?” She asked me, wrapping the instrument around my arm to check my blood pressure. Turning it on, she went back to focus all her attention back to me.

“I’m pretty sure she has a fever,” Jack interrupted instead of letting me answer.

“I was actually asking Ireland, here,” the nurse sighed and gave Jack a shake of her head, “but I guess you’re able to feel what she does.”

He pursed his lips, looking very guilty before rushing over to Alex and sitting in his lap, saying something about the mean nurse attacking him, asking Alex to make it all better. It was nice to see Jack act more like his old self. Alex being around really helped with that. They fed of each other’s energy, so Jack had somebody who happily acted crazy with him.

“What he said,” I told the nurse while Alex and Jack were still basically cuddled up, “I feel cold, he says I feel hot.”

“Ok, well, I’m just going to measure your temperature to make sure then,” she gave me the thermometer to put in my mouth, going down her checklist to see if there was anything else to do. Her pen eventually stopped somewhere halfway through the page. “Any pain, especially in your joints?” I shook my head, not being able to talk with the apparatus in my mouth. “Nausea?” I shook my hand to tell her so-so. “I’m going to count that as a yes because you always tell us somethings a six on a scale from one to ten, but we would consider it nine.” I rolled my eyes at her. Next, she checked the thermometer. “Ok, it seems like you do have a pretty high fever. I’m guessing that these are early signs of infection, which isn’t anything to worry about. It’s very usual for it to happen since the transplant also affects your immune system. It’s nothing some antibiotics can’t fix. I’ll be right back.”

I groaned as soon as she left the room, sinking down into my pillows again, “I was so happy not to have any needles or cannulas sticking in my hands or arms, but I’m getting one again!”

“Had enough of them?” Alex asked in a joking manner, but I was too fed up with all this to laugh as well.

“No, I love being poked by needles countless of times.” I rolled my eyes watching Jack climb out of Alex’s lap and going back to his own fancier padded chair. “The only people who actually like it are heroin addicts. Last time I checked, I am not a heroin addict.”

“You’re mean when cannulas are involved,” Jack pouted, bringing his feet up onto the chair so his knees where underneath his chin awkwardly.

“No, this is me being annoyed,” I corrected him, basically contradicting my statement, “I’ll get mean when they decide to miss my vein over and over again until my arm’s basically bleeding all over.”

The door burst open. Instead of a nurse coming in like I was expecting, Cameron came stumbling in instead, eyes going wide when he saw Alex sitting there casually. Freezing up, he slowly turned around on one foot, going back for the open doorway.

“Holy fucking shit,” he mumbled before getting louder, “ok, I’m out of here!”

And with that he left and the door slammed shut again. He just needed a minute to fangirl in peace before coming back. Everybody shared looks while Jack and I were the only ones knowing exactly what was going on. It was typical Cam to not be able to control his excitement, especially around bandmembers. How was he ever going to make it big if he couldn’t even talk to his idols that were willing to acknowledge him?

“What was that about?” Alex questioned, not even knowing who the awkward guy who just walked in was.

“Isle’s twin brother,” Jack answered for me once again rather than letting me explain myself, “he probably just saw you and had a mild fangirl attack. It’s not bad. I got a similar-ish reaction out of him when I saw him the first time. Ireland wasn’t fazed about it all while he was trying to explain who I was…”

He continued to explain the whole event again, adding as much detail as possible, such as me not knowing who they were but actually knowing as well. Then the whole way Cameron did not just talk, but also act. It all really had left an impression on Jack if he could retell the whole story with all this around it.

But I wasn’t listening anymore. The nausea and sick-feeling was only starting to get worse, making my stomach turn queasy and churn uncomfortably. I knew I was going to be sick anytime soon, but I couldn’t do it in front of so many people. Any other moment in a group, I would have rushed to the bathroom, like I’ve done before, but with all the other machines still hooked onto me, that also wasn’t exactly an option anymore.

When Jack subconsciously put his hand on my mattress, I reached out under my duvet to let my fingers graze with his. He eventually looked down at me after he had finished his story and immediately realised that I wasn’t doing so well anymore. But what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t just send his friends out, but he also didn’t just want to go with them and leave me all alone. I know they wouldn’t have judged me, because they were visiting while I had been in a hospital for quite some time and anything could still go wrong. However, that didn’t mean I felt comfortable.

Luckily, Cameron came back in, having calmed down quite significantly. He actually seemed ready to meet Alex without having another fangirl attack. Of course, Alex was still one of his idols, but he just had to remind himself that he was also just a human being. Cameron was starting to understand what it was like to have girls scream whenever they saw him. However, when Jack saw that this was a chance to give us some time alone, he quickly took it, only making Cam freak out a little again.

“Hey, how about you take Alex and Lisa to go get some food while the nurses come in here to give Isle an IV again?” Jack suggested, twisting around the situation just slightly. It was true, nurses never liked working with too many visitors, but this wasn’t going to be such a problem.

“What, me?” Cam nearly squeaked out, his body posture stiffening up as his heartbeat probably started rising quickly.

Jack just gave him a look, not really implying anything, but at the same time just telling him to get going already.

“I mean, yeah, sure why not? It’s not like I’m just going to stand there. What? No, not at all. It’s going to be all good. Let’s go!” Cam rambled on, only embarrassing himself.

Normally, I would have taken this opportunity to laugh and make fun of him, but I wasn’t exactly up for that. Luckily, Alex was able to see past my brother’s awkwardness and took Lisa with him to follow Cam and find some place where they could get food other than the hospital cafeteria. I really wanted to see all the stupid things Cam would do and hear all the messed up things he would say. This was a pretty big deal to him, but I couldn’t help and love seeing my brother uneasy surrounded by people he idolizes.

“Are you ok?” Jack asked me as soon as we were the only ones left in the room.

I hummed in response, shrugging a little. Even though I wasn’t surrounded by people anymore, it did not mean that I practically liked being sick. I was still going to try and suppress it all. I had enough of this whole terminally ill thing. Well, I wasn’t exactly terminally ill anymore, but you get the jist.

Without me having to ask, he got up and picked up the empty bucket that was placed against the wall. I hadn’t needed that thing for quite some time, but here I was, once again going to have to clutch onto that sickening thing for dear life. Jack helped me sit up so that he could sit on the side of my bed, just behind me. After placing the bucket in front of me, he let one of his hand lighting rest on my leg as if to comfort me.

“You’re going to be ok,” he whispered and lightly kissed my temple.

I nodded, but could already feel the bile rising up my throat. It didn’t take much longer after that. Jack stayed right there with me, not disgusted at all by what was going down. He stayed right there, sat behind me, and kept telling me how much he loved me and that everything was going to be ok, that this was just one last obstacle to overcome. I don’t know how he managed to stay so positive, because tears were definitely streaming down my face.

When a different nurse came in with the antibiotics they were going to give me, she also got me a new bucket and said she’d clean out the old one. Getting a needle stuck into your hand when you already feel nauseous really doesn’t work out well. It just made me a lot dizzier. There was no way I was going to be back to normal before Cam came back with Alex and Lisa. I was just waiting for them to burst through that door with food that was only going to make my stomach churn even more. The black bucket was still clean, and I would have loved to keep it that way.

“What the shit happened in here?” My brother asked, being the first one to reappear in the hospital room again.

I just let myself hang over the bucket, my arms on the outer edge, trying to take deep breaths, and groaned, “fuck off.”

I wasn’t up for his stupid jokes right now. He would totally have started if I didn’t show my annoyance before he could even think of something to say. Some people just didn’t know when to stop with jokes, and if things got a bit too serious Cam just couldn’t stop himself. If you were just in time, however, you could get him to stop before he would make everything go downhill.

“Maybe we should go out for a bit more…” he turned around and pushed Lisa and Alex out of the room with him, “Jack’s got this.”

“Is she ok?” Lisa asked quietly as she tried to see what was going on without being rude.

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine.”

The door shut behind them.