Love, Life and Living with Cancer

Chaoter four

"Stace, Hun?" I hear my mother's delicate voice as my eyes flutter open. "Time to get up, you've been asleep to long already!"

"Mmmmm?"  I saw my mother perched on the side of my bed, her blonde hair flowing, her green eyes shining.  As I sat up to start getting out, something went wrong, something deep inside. My heart I think seconds before I scream out in pain. I clutch at my chest as the pain floods through me.

"Stacey? Oh god, don't do this to me now!" My mum shouts in horror. "I'm going to call an ambulance!" And then everything turned black...

I open my eyes and I'm in a strange white room. I turn my head and see my mum asleep in a chair beside the bed I lay in. I also saw a man who was checking some machines.

"Who are you?" I ask inquisitively "Where am I?"

"Stacey, you're awake! I'm Doctor Shepherd. You're in the cardiac department at Stepping Hill hospital."

"WH-what? Why? Where's Doctor Hope?"  I say, starting to get scared.

"Don't start panicking! It's really not good for your heart!" The young doctor told me. "Doctor Hope is on holiday in Egypt. You are here because your heart temporarily failed and you needed our help."

I tried to sit up, but Doctor Shepherd pushed me back down. I screamed for him to let me go, but he just told me it was for my own good. In the midst of all this commotion my mum woke up and stood on her feet.

"Oh my god, Stacey!" She exclaimed. "Oh thank god you're okay!" she hugged me so hard I felt as if I couldn't breathe. She pushed me against the bed and told me the doctor was right and I had to savour my energy. "I love you so much, my little baby. Don't you ever scare me like that again!"

As my mother talked to me, all I could think was that my heart had failed. How had this happened? How had the doctors not foreseen it? I but in on her incessant ramblings.

"What are you going to do? About my heart I mean." I ask, not being at all around the bush. My Mother looked over concerned to Doctor Shepherd.

"Well, we have decided that in your case, being so young and so ill, that we should move you up the donor list for your heart. You are now top of the list for your size and blood type, so we're hoping you'll get a new one soon" He told me and my mother.

"But how long could that take? What about in the meantime? What do you expect us to do?"

"Well, until we find a suitable heart and are able to do the operation, we think it would be appropriate for Stacey to stay in our child cancer unit. It is extremely well equipped and you will feel right at home."

"But, what about school and what about Seth?"

"Um, I'm not sure who Seth is, but you will have a tutor to come in and tech you each day. Don't worry; you won't get behind on your work."

I blanked out his voice after that. Seth I thought. I won't be able to see him. He's going to dump me if I'm not even capable of going on a date.

I knew it was al going to go wrong from then, but not as dramatically as it did ...