Caramel Latte & Coffee Black (A Norman Reedus Love Story)

5 | Too Much Love Killed The Mockingbird

What really happened was that every day at school I started to feel tired. Then one day I just collapsed from sheer exhaustion at class. The school nurse informed my parents and they wheeled me off to see a doctor. It took full blood work, tumor markings, protein testing and biopsies before they found out I had leukemia. The doctors told me and my parents that I needed treatment that would actually make me feel a whole lot worse than the disease itself, to which I told them where to go.

     I’m sure, everyone thought it was because I’d lose my hair, but truthfully speaking the problem was more that not once did I feel like I was dying. I just knew I was dying, but only because they told me so. All I felt was exhaustion, to the point of not wanting to wake up in the morning, and what I had learned from them from chemotherapy I would feel like I was dying. Out of those two choices, I rather wanted to feel tired, instead of - - dying, which made all the differences to it.

     And as a reaction to that, I was directed to the hospital’s child psychologist to convince me to change my mind. She was a hoot and a half! At first her idea was to start a blog online where I could tell my story, and then it escalated into joining into a supportive group for adolescent cancer patients, but the last idea, to sign up for a summer cancer camp, was the worst. Hey, it’s okay! Cancer can be so much fun! I told her to stuff that blog, cancer camp, and all the support groups ever invented into where the Sun doesn’t shine.

     After that there were a lieu of other psychologists, most of which used tough love method. I’d lived through thirteen and then some years of tough love from my dad. But, long story short, my father got fed up with me anyways and he said I was killing him and my mother. Accusations and cursing was thrown on both sides, but finally my dad said that if I didn’t go to the reserved appointment, and let the put that IV in my arm, and smile all the way through it, there would be no more computer or internet, no TV, no phone, no friends to meet or music. It was a low blow from them, that’s for sure, because they both knew how much I loved music and how much I loved to sing.

     I don’t know what it was but I figured it was out of revenge to my dad’s ultimatum. I ran on our way to the hospital. I just got out of the car and - - and ran for it. I ran down the 1st Avenue, running for my life. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. I didn’t get far, I don’t even know why I thought I would. I made it past ten blocks maybe and around the corner there, I collapsed in front of the Clearview Cinemas front doors. It was about this time of year, a little bit chillier maybe, but there were flowers. New flowers planted recently for the spring, and there I was dying in the flower pots of a New York movie theater.

     Well, of course my parents wouldn’t let me die like that. They called the cops on me. I tried to run from them but, I was still out of breath and my legs were pretty much Jell-O. They caught me, tackled me like I was some kind of a criminal and they handcuffed me, all the while I was kicking and screaming. They drove straight to the hospital I was supposed to be and as soon as they stopped in front of the ER door, and tried to pull me out of the car, I started kicking again. So, they strapped my legs together with cable ties around my ankles. I had handcuffs on my wrists, cable ties on my ankles, so it was easy for them to pick me up, and drag me inside like a sheep going to slaughter. My mother didn’t even get out of the car, she was crying in the passenger seat and my father was so pissed off, I had never seen him that mad before. He just followed the officers and me inside, and to the elevator. At the ward I was tossed up on a stretcher, and took of my cuffs and cut off the cable tie, but they stayed to help hold me down, while the nurses and orderlies put bed restraints on my ankles, wrists, over my shoulders and thighs, all the while they just wheeled me down the hall.

     The doctor trailed us into the room and through my screaming and thrashing I heard him tell my father that I was borderline age where they would have to ask my opinion, and respect it, and maybe try counseling for a longer period in order to seek out my consent! He said that it was also the borderline time when if they wouldn’t do anything I’d be at high risk of treatment failure no matter what they would try out later.