Reflection in the mirror

chapter 2

I'll introduce you to my family.  There's six of us. my mum and dad, Sarah and William, my oldest sister Nadine, she's eighteen and loves the goth culture and fashion, I think she looks like a panda with too much eyeliner on but that's just me. My older brother Owen, he's seventeen, he is about as kind and gentle as seventeen year old boys come, but he's the best brother out there. Me, Olivia, I'm thirteen and even though I know I won't live long enough to see her live, I love Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac. And, finally, there's my baby sister, Cassandra, but we all call her Cassie, I wouldn't tell anyone this to their face, but Cassie's my favourite, I know it's bad to  have favourites but I owe Cassie everything. Cassie and I are extremely close, I mean, mega close. Cassie helped me one time, majorly. She helped save my life. 

Let me paint you a little picture here: it's 2010. I'm seven years old and Cassie is almost four. one night, after Bonfire Night, when myself and Cassie shared a bedroom, I woke up to blood streaming out of my nose, eyes, mouth, rectum and every pore. I remember screaming for mum and dad before fainting and waking Cassie up. I don't remember the majority of the car ride but I know that by the time I got to the hospital I was finally beginning to slip into unconsciousness and while the nurses pumped me full of plasma and platelets that apparently was streaming out of me just as quickly,  like a river Thames of blood that wouldn't cease, no matter how hard the nurses tried to staunch it. I guess it must've looked pretty horrific, like a scene from that program "American Horror Story" that mum forbids Cassie and I to watch but anyway, that's beside the point. When the blood eventually stopped, somehow, some way, I needed another round of Chemo to kill off the cells that my cancer had reclaimed but first I needed a BMT (or bone marrow transplant for those un- medical professionals out there) only trouble was, none of my family were a match, no one. except Cassie.  So, my not- quite- four- year- old sister was to save my life, because no one else could.  Cassie underwent  massive, invasive surgery at the word of my mother, simply to keep me alive. For that alone, I am eternally grateful to my baby sister.  she saved my life, but I can't save her's. 

I wish Nadine would step up, she's still my sister and nothing can change that, no matter how much she hates us, detests me and wishes me dead, I love her. I guess she never quite forgave me for missing her tenth birthday, her thirteenth and then her sixteenth. It wasn't timed or anything but it happened. I know she's angry, but I also know that she's hurting, more than any of us know. 

I'd like Owen to get his head out of the football and take over the family. Daddy, God bless him, he loves us all, we know that but he lives at the station. Waits by the phone for the time that I relapse, or need surgery. Owen and his girlfriend are amazing people but when he moved out to live with her and her family at age 15, I can't describe the  level of emotional pain I was in. Physical pain, I can cope with, along with the help of a patient managed morphine pump, but emotional pain- that's a whole new kettle of fish entirely. 

I want Cassie to know that I will never forget just how much she has done for me, donating blood, marrow, stem cells, going through those awful shots to add more cells and them having them harvested, missing holidays, days out and school so she could be in the hospital to help save me, her older sister by three and a half years. I should have been saving her, not the opposite way around. I want her to know that I love her, for her. not for being her sister's keeper. I'm sorry Cassie, really, I am