"Tali! Emmy! Come one!" my mother yelled. I heard my sister, Emmy, roll over and get out of bed, going to the bathroom to wash up. I was about to get out of bed when I fell off my feet and felt something crawling up my throat. My stomach churned and I leaned over my flood to throw up. You know how when you throw up you usually don't care what it is unless it tastes bad or has a weird color? But either way you feel you have to look? Well because of that, I saw that I was puking blood.
"Tali?! Come on." Emmy yelled. She came over to where I was and saw the blood smeared around my mouth and on the floor.
"MOM!!!" Emmy screamed. My mother ran up the stairs, barging into our room.
"Oh no." Mom said when she saw me. There was red streaks in my hair from puking and thanks to my white blond hair, it showed pretty easily.
"Mom! We have to go!" my little brother, Sammie, said from the doorway. Sure, he's only eight, but he knows what's wrong with me. So does Emmy. Obviously.
"Sammie, go get your father from the living room. Tell him Tali has to go to the hospital. Now." Mom said. Then she called into the room over where my cousin, Mason, was staying. "Mason! Come here a second!"
"What's wrong?" he started to ask.
"Help me get Tali to the car. Emmy, pack her bag." Mom ordered. We met my father, Emmy, and Sammie in the car. We drove to the hospital and when we got there, I was admitted to emergency. We met my doctor there, Dr. Samuel Chase. They took me to the cancer part of the hospital where I'm usually placed, in the children's ward. There, they took a blood test from me. I was in bed, talking with Emmy, my sixteen year old sister, when Dr. Chase came in.
"Kate, we have the results. Will you come out in the hall with me please?" Dr. Chase says. I know it's not good. I mean, Mom and Dad did what my Grandmother, Sara Fitzgerald, had done when she found out her elsdest daughter, and only daughter at the time, had APL, a rare type of leukemia. But then Mom made it through, and got married. She had kids, first Emmy, then me. But then I was diagnosed with APL, a the same version of leukemia. The same thing mom had. They choose to have a designer baby, because they already wanted another kid, this one just could be the exact match for me. They took my baby brother, Sammie's, cord blood. It put me into remission for six years. I knew I was going to die sooner or later, I just didn't know if it was going to be sooner, or later. But I'm thirteen, and Sammie is eight. He put me into remission for six years. Sammie was born a year and nine months after I was diagnosed. Do the math. Basically, I was diagnosed when I was about five years old. Sure, they tried chemo and radiation, but they only worked for so long. Then right before Sammie was born, I went into surgery and got a catheter tube put in. That's how I got the cord blood in. That's what saved me.
"Em, your father needs to tell you something on the bench outside." Mom says from the doorway. Emmy nods, kisses my forehead, and then walks out to see my father.
"Mom, what's wrong." I say finally.
"Babe, I am nothing like my mother. We already wanted Sammie. You know that. But then he saved your life, and we are thankful for that. But I will not be like my mother and force Sammie into transplants and blood transfusions, bone marrow donation, things that my mother forced Anna to do. But you are relapsing. We don't know if you want to go throw chemo again, radiation, or if you want to see if Sammie or Emmy would donate anything. It's completely your choice." Mom says. She knows exactly what I am going through. I remember how sick I got from the chemo, but I also remember how weak and tired I felt after radiation. How nauseas I had felt, no relief ever coming. And I didn't want to take anything from Sammie or Emmy if I didn't need to.
"Chemo." I say finally. Mom nods and goes to the hall to tell Dr. Chase. They decided I was going to share a room for chemo. They finally change my room and so I'm in with one girl and two guys. It was a really big room. The girl in there had long silky brown hair that I was jealous of. She had tan skin and brown eyes. She didn't look sick at all. Then there was the two boys, one of them was bald with bright blue eyes. He looked weak and pale, but I knew he was going through chemo, like I would be soon. The other boy had black hair that was starting to fall out and gray eyes.
"What's your name?" The black haired boy finally asks. Sure, the rooms big, but there's still enough room where we can hear each other by whispering slightly loud.
"Hi." I start. "Talulah, Tali for short. APL, you?" I ask.
"Hi Tali. I'm Brice. AML." Brice says. He's the black haired boy.
"Relapsing and going through chemo?" I ask Brice. He nods. "Me too. I start today, I think." Dr. Chase said I would start right after lunch. It was only about ten right now. Brice fell asleep and I turned to look at the girl. She too, was asleep. I finally turned to look at the bald boy.
"Hi." I say.
"Hello." He nods back.
"I'm Tali." I say.
"So I heard. My name is Hunter. AML." He says.
"Hey, what's with the girl? She doesn't look sick at all." I say suddenly.
"That's Maddie. She's ALL, but she has about three months left, so she got visited by the Make A Wish foundation. They sent her to Flordia where she got a new wig and a nice tan. But don't let that fool you. She's really mean. She wants everything about her, even if it's bad." Hunter sneers. I nod, thinking. I doze off, and when I wake up, I see Dr. Chase standing next to me.
"Is it time?" I ask. Dr. Chase nods. I nod back. I let him start getting things set up, then finally, he starts the chemo. I try to fall back asleep, and succeed, until I wake up and turn over, wrentching up the last thing I ate, which happened to be french fries and a banana. I quickly grab a bucket, then after I finish, I realize that Maddie, Hunter, and Brice where looking at me.
"Can I help you?" I ask. Hunter shakes his head, Brice blushes, and Maddie talks.
"You have scars all over your body that shower when you were sleeping and kicked off your blankets. Brice and Hunter were wondering where there from." She says matter o'factly.
"When I was first diagnosed, I had bruises on my body. They were dangerous, the marks of where the leukemia has hit badly. They had to be removed. That's all." I say. They don't believe me.