Dare to live 3(5)

I passed out after counting to thirteen this time. Not a good sign, I thought, drifting into darkness.

Note to readers. This is a work of adult fiction. No resemblance to reality should be inferred or expected.
Copyright… We will circle back to it…

My sis Audra was home. She was with her friend Armand. It was that benefit of being an adult to be with whom she wanted to be. Armand was a few years older than Audra and he was a lawyer. He was helping Audra to sort things out with me. She was made my guardian along with the rents. This way she could go with me wherever it was needed and sign all the papers that might be needed. Mom could stay at home with dad and the twins.

Audra had a lot of friends. One of them knew someone in Boston who went to Europe to do some investigation and left their apartment empty. Audra got permission and key to this apartment.

The apartment was what they call an efficiency. Everything was located in one room including a bed and kitchenette. There was an armchair that could be unfolded into a second sleeping place so we didn't need to share the bed. And… I realized that this a priest's apartment. I was an altar boy and have been in more than one priest's home. There were mandatory things every catholic priest had. Like the picture of the Pope. And a wooden cross on the work table. Some books but not too many. Exactly opposite of what was in this apartment.

"It's not a catholic priest's apartment," I offered.

"Yeah… Priscilla is Lutheran," Audra replied.

"Woman – a priest?"

"Why yes."

Was it ok for Catholics to stay in a woman priest's home? Wasn't it a sin?

"Not, it's not a sin," Audra said.

"Was I thinking aloud?"

"Yeah, you were."

I was doing that a lot lately.

The apartment was within walking distance of the hospital. But if I felt weak or the weather was overcast, I could take a bus. We didn't have to pay for our stay. We just had to keep the apartment clean.

The first day in the hospital was taking blood and urine tests to allow radiotherapy or not. Dr. Brody said it was mandatory to take the tests. The next day radiotherapy started. I was laid on a metal table on my back and above me moved some steel equipment with a maze of cables and wire. I could imagine it was heavy. Extremely. It was more than ten feet in every direction. So it had to be several tons. And it turned and twisted above me.

I didn't feel anything. Warmth, pain, not even a touch. After some twenty minutes, it was over and I was released to go home.

I felt good. Or rather I felt the same as before. I came back home. That's to Priscilla's apartment. The stay in Boston wasn't a vacation. Audra had gotten assignments from school for me to read and to do. I did my homework. I did more than was assigned. I had hoped to explore the city after all my schoolwork was done. Portland was kinda like a village compared to Boston. Audra said there were a lot of places we could visit.

Not the next day but the day after I had to be in the hospital again. And again, the same equipment moved and twisted above me. I felt good.

The day after the third time, I felt the sickness. As if I wanted to puke but I didn't have anything to get rid of. With every day I was getting worse and worse. Then after the sixth therapy treatment, I was left in the hospital. This radiation was killing me. Still, four radiation treatments were left.

Sickness and faintness were constant now. In the hospital or at home, I was in bed. No school assignments and sure no sightseeing in Boston.

Then there was a redness on my belly as if I had a sunburn. It itched a little. But it was nothing compared to the overall sickness.

I didn't remember much. The remaining time in the hospital and the last radiating procedures went by in a fog.

Audra didn't take me home to Portland after I was released from the hospital. She didn't want little twins and my rents to see me in such a condition. Anyway, there were duties left for me in Boston. We spoke to the folks often enough to let them know that we were okay, even if I was too weak to come back to them.

I felt better a week later. Better enough to be homeschooled by Audra. And to visit the hospital every day on foot for special gym classes. To regain strength and to help my body get rid of the killed tumor.

A month later, Dr. Brody announced he was ready to start my chemotherapy. It was planned for a two week treatment. I was getting a medicine mixture through IV once a day. The sickness and dizziness started that first day immediately after the first portion was injected. It was incomparably worse than radiotherapy. Incomparably…

I don't remember when it started exactly, but I lost all my hair. And I mean all, eyelashes included. And some toenails. They just washed off one day when Audra was clothe washing me.

I couldn't eat. I puked after every try to swallow something. I was fed by the IV. I had catheters on both hands for feeding solutions and medicine. I lost some weight because I was not actually eating food.

During the summer holidays, the last two weeks are a time that flies by in the blink of an eye. Now, two weeks of chemotherapy have been the longest two weeks of my life. It was hell - not life. I wasn't sure I wanted to live.

After the chemotherapy, my life didn't come back to normalcy. I was weak. I puked a lot because of constant nausea. Then I was released from the hospital. Audra and I could go home. Our real home.

We missed Christmas and New Year. It wasn't important this time. More like a distraction. What Audra didn't miss was my torture twice a week – dilation. I wasn't sure why I needed it. It was useless now. I couldn't imagine myself using this cavity of my body ever.

Audra tried to get me used to feminine things. Like tights. Cold was another feeling besides nausea accompanying me constantly. The tights felt good. Especially those fleece things. They were warm. I was wearing them all the time. Outside under my pants and only them at home. At home, I didn't complain because there were only two of us.

We could go home but I was reluctant. One reason was the nausea. It was back whenever I got into the car. Audra decided to wait a week. I was bald. My friends and I had shaven our heads two years ago. Because we had lost the game. It was the result of a bet. Eventually, we didn't look bad. But to have your head shaven and to be hairless are two tremendous differences. There was a charity program to provide wigs for kids like me but I didn't pass because it was for leukemia patients. We could buy the wig. But they are expensive. I could survive baldness. It was more painful for girls. Audra said I was a girl now but I didn't feel like one. And then, with the wig or without it I had no eyebrows and it just looked weird.

After a week I felt somewhat better. I had to come back to Boston after six weeks to run routine tests. Nothing special. They will show my healing progress.

At home, it was worse than it was the previous time. Twins were distancing from me. Even mom and dad didn't stay with me in the same room for long. The same at school. I felt like an outsider in my own life.

I had some tests at school and it was proven I would need to repeat the year. It was for the better. I didn't need to attend school. I got books for reading from the library and could stay at home.

I stayed at home. There was no quietness at home as it was before. The jet port was expanding its logistic facilities and our street was used extensively by construction trucks. Our house was at the turn of the street. That curve was the cause of a truck losing a barrel from its flatbed and the barrel rolled over the lawn and bumped into the wall.

The result was all kinds of people from the construction company talking to my parents, walking around to look at the damage to the house, and taking a lot of pictures. The construction company offered dad five thousand bucks for wall repaint. The company seem to want to use the opportunity to grind the ignorant blue-collar worker.

When I heard dad talking about the company's offer, I called Audra immediately because she was back in Orono. She had her friend, the lawyer, working here in Portland Down Town. We had a lawyer at our side and the company had to play nice. Especially since our lawyer used my illness as a trump card.

It was decided we couldn't continue to stay in our house. The company had a block of already-built houses in the suburbs on the opposite side of Portland – Falmouth. They offered one of those freshly built houses. Dad was smart enough not to complain and the agreement was signed the same day.

As a result, we lost our apple trees and our friends and neighbors. As well as cargo jets flying over our heads day and night. I did not miss that at all. The street where our new home was was as bald as my head – no single tree or shrub. Only identical white two-story houses. On the other side of the street were one-story houses. Our backyard adjoined a previously inhabited house's backyard. They had some shrubs and garden beds for veggies. A Balsam fir grew on the border of two backyards. It was still young and some five feet tall and it was the only tree.

The feeling of staying here was of quietness and emptiness.

It was March and the time had come to go back to Boston and do some tests. Audra was here again at my side. I didn't know how she managed to stay in uni and be with me for so long. We settled into the same efficient apartment.

The next day we went to the hospital and… The tests showed the situation was worse than it was before. It was decided I needed another surgery immediately. I wasn't even allowed to go home.

The procedure was the same as before. Only the priest this time was a stranger. I insisted on confession and there was only Reverend Samuel present.

I passed out after counting to thirteen this time. Not a good sign I thought drifting into darkness.

I woke up in another room and the sun was shining through the window. Only one IV was attached to my left hand and no other tubes. I was alone in the room. I pressed the call button and a nurse was shortly in my room.

"Oh, you are awake already," she simply said. "How do you feel?"

"Ok, I guess," I shrugged.

"I'll call the doc," she said and left.

Dr. Brody with Audra entered the room. Audra's eyes were red and the doctor was not smiling. He pulled one of the chairs over to the bed and sat down so that he was at my level.

"The news is not good," the doctor said. "Medicine is sometimes powerless, even though we have done our best," he simply said.

"Is this…?" I stammered. There was a sickening feeling in my belly.

"I have to admit your case is hopeless." The doctor was able to look me in the eye when he said that.

I knew it was a death sentence. I had no strength to react. I didn't know what I was supposed to do or say. Nothing.

"How long?"

"Three to four months."

June or July…

"We'll provide you with everything you'll need," Dr. Brody said, "we will not leave you alone."

I was left in the hospital for stitches to heal.

I wanted to be tough but I wasn't. I cried all night. I was given a sedative shot. And then another one. I didn't cry the next day because no tears were left. Audra came and we cried together a little. Then she left and the counselor came. All that talking didn't help much. But I was talking and listening and not left alone to myself. Maybe it was on the plus side.

When I was a kid death wasn't real. It was a word that had no real meaning. Later I got to know it. She was real but she was real to others and not me. And now I was in line to get to know her personally. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to wait for it to come. And it was coming like it or not. I wanted to end it now and not wait. No. Not a suicide. Go to sleep one night and don't wake up the next morning. Why did it have to be so complicated and excruciating?

Why I was here? I didn't ask to be born. Mom and dad wanted a kid and here I am to die.

I stayed in the hospital for a week. Until the section was healed and the stitches were dissolved. When I left the hospital, I was a different person. I wasn't happy and life wasn't funny. I couldn't imagine what could be funny, what could bring a smile to my face.

At home, mom and dad knew the bad news. They and the twins had a few sessions with counselors about how to behave and what to say to me.

A few days after my return, spring break at the middle school started. It was a different time than at high school. The twins were free for a week. My parents decided to use this time to visit Uncle Bruce's farm in Vermont. Uncle Bruce was my mom's uncle, her mom's brother. He was the only American in our extended family.

The trip took us four and a half hours with all stops for snacks and the bathroom. I had never been to the farm before. It was everything new for my brothers and me. Big farmhouse, barn, cattle shed and stable for horses, orchard, and huge vegetable beds.

The weather was like it had to be in March something about the fifties or more if Sun was shining.

So, despite it being a somewhat chilly day, I decided to spend some time in the backyard so I put tights under my jeans to keep me warm and a hoodie over my flannel shirt. The twins were in the backyard already and there was a young calf too. The twins and the calf were kinda playing tag with each other. When I'd stepped down from the porch on the grass the calf ran toward me and nudged me with its big round nose as if it was saying ‘Come play with us'. It was very gentle and afterward, it waited for my move. Why not? I thought to myself. I made a quick turn and touched Minde's arm.

"I tagged you!" I shouted and ran away. My speed was in no comparison to what I was before so Gedas and Minde readjusted their running to my new normal. The calf wasn't running as fast as it was before my appearance.

My stamina wasn't the same as years ago and I was exhausted some ten minutes later.

"I'm out guys. I'm sorry…" I said to the twins and turned to leave, heading to the barn. The calf was tagging along. I smiled at it and stroked its forehead where its horns were meant to appear. We both turned around the barn and found Uncle Bruce standing there at the barn's gate.

"Oh good you have brought it here," he said, "I'm already a little too old to chase calves." He grabbed the calf under his left arm then tripped it over the trough and slit its throat with a knife I didn't notice before.

I couldn't look away no matter how hard I tried. I was staring into the calf's eyes reflecting fear and grievance, a sort of betrayal while its blood was pouring into the trough.

"That's for a barbeque tonight, I s'pose it will be fun," Uncle Bruce said. He looked at me and my face probably said it all so he patted my back and then said: "The cattle are meant to be slaughtered."

That calf made me smile today. The first smile in so many months and probably the last smile in my life. It helped me get closer to my brothers. All three of us were together like it was months ago. And it was killed now. For fun. It dawned on me then that my life couldn't be valuable if I didn't value the life of those who were making me happy.

I couldn't take a single bite of meat into my mouth anymore.

"If you don't eat meat, you will not…" mom started to persuade me and stopped abruptly. She had no arguments. I was dying anyway no matter what I'll eat.

"Leave him alone," dad suggested.

The visit to Uncle Bruce's farm made me think about my exit. I saw myself differently now. As if from a side. Like I wasn't me but a bystander. I didn't want others to remember me with anger and disgust. I had to exit nicely.

I had to return books to the school library. It was now spring break at high school and at uni where Audra studied. So Audra was at home. My old school was in South Portland while we lived in Falmouth now. I couldn't go on foot and I didn't dare take a risk at riding the bus.

Audra drove me to the school and waited for me in the car. I still had my student id and was allowed in. I returned my books to the library and got the receipt.

I was coming down the corridor to the main school entrance. Meanwhile from the side of the gym was coming a man. As he got closer, I recognized him as Trevor's dad. We got to the door almost simultaneously. I stepped aside letting him go first while he opened the door and held it with his left hand while with the right he motioned saying "After you miss." He was my first basketball coach together with Leo Gonzales six years ago for God's sake. He was at all our games with the younger Trevor's sis Mandy. He sure had seen me playing. I was playing more than any other boy on the team. And now ‘Miss'! How could I be Miss?

When I got back into the car I wanted to tell Audra the story of how Trevor's dad had mistaken me for a girl but then why mistaken? I was a girl officially and had some girl parts. Though I was dying my body was widening in hips and it was growing tits.

I found Audra something agitated.

"Dr. Brody just called," she said, "he wants us in Boston tomorrow. He doesn't want to reassure us prematurely but he thinks he has some good news."

To be continued