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A New Life

-Chapter 10: We're Gonna Be Alright–

"I got a call from Michael's principal. Apparently he wasn't in school today." Lilly said. "You think he was skipping school with his friends?" Oliver asked. "I don't think he would do that." Jimmy commented. "He wasn't. I called Miley, Susan was in school. Then I called Jackson, Robbie was in school too." Lilly said. "I wonder what he's been up to. Maybe he's in his room?" Oliver said. "Maybe, I'll go check." Lilly said. She walked up the stairs and approached Michael's room. "You're in big trouble Michael! I wanna know why you weren't in school today." Lilly said. She received silence, so she stepped into the room. She didn't see him on his bed or sitting at his desk. "Michael you have some explaining to… OH MY GOD! Michael are you alright? Answer me! Can you hear me!?" Lilly shouted frantically. Michael was sprawled out on the floor, he had obviously fallen. His thinned, pale stomach was slightly exposed and his left arm was behind his head, the other arm at his side. He was lying on his back, unconscious and his eyes were closed. "OH MY GOD! OLIVER GET UP HERE QUICKLY!" Lilly yelled at the top of her lungs. Fear was flooding into her mind.

"OLIVER DID YOU HEAR ME? GET UP HERE QUICK!" Lilly shouted hysterically. "What's wrong Lils?" Oliver asked. But he didn't need to wait for an answer. He saw his ten year old son lying on the floor unmoving. This was all the answer he needed. Oliver's heart began racing, beating like a drum on the inside of his chest. "What do we do?" He asked. "We hafta get him to the hospital. You carry him down to the car. I'll drive. I'm not as slow a driver as you Oliver." Lilly said. Oliver kneeled down next to Michael, getting ready to lift him into his arms. "WAIT!" Jimmy shouted suddenly as he entered the room. "We can't wait. We need to get him to the hospital now Jimmy." Oliver said. "I know. But he might be in diabetic shock." Jimmy said. "So? Then we definitely need to take him to the hospital." Oliver said. He turned attempted to lift Michael once again. "STOP!" Jimmy shouted. "You need to leave the room Jimmy. You're only making things worse." Lilly said angrily. "No I'm not! If he's in diabetic shock or really any kind of shock, he shouldn't be moved. It'll make it worse, a lot worse." Jimmy said. They both looked at him with confused and worried looks. "Then what do we do?" Oliver asked. "Call an ambulance. They have to make him stable enough and then they can take him to the hospital." Jimmy said. In his head he was thinking "Didn't you guys read the stuff they gave us? You should know this…"

"I think he's right. Oliver go…" Lilly started to say. But Oliver was already out of the room. Less than a minute later he returned. "Ok… they're coming… an ambulance…any minute now…" Oliver said, gasping for breath. He had run from downstairs, he was too frenzied to take anything slowly at the moment. Time seemed to reach a standstill during the space of the four and a half minutes it took for the ambulance to reach the Okens' house. They stood there in silence for most of the wait. Every once in a while one of them would utter a few syllables. "He'll be okay." Oliver murmured. "He's strong, he'll be fine." Rose uttered. Jimmy was the one that spoke up and ended the silence. With all the thoughts of how unfair the whole situation seemed to him, Jimmy couldn't stay quiet any longer. "Why does he always have these things happening to him? He doesn't deserve it. It's not fair." Jimmy said staring down at his brother, who lay motionless. His lips where curved upward in what looked like a smile. It seemed to reassure them that Michael would make it through this. But it was of very little comfort to them.

"Jimmy, of course he didn't do anything to deserve this. He just…I don't know if I can really come up with a reason. Sometimes there's no reason why bad things happen to good people." Lilly said in a shaking voice. "What if you look at it this way: He was crippled. Everybody thought he's never walk again but he got that back. So he has diabetes and it's not going so good for him right now. But it will." Rose said. Lilly hugged her tight and smiled. "I'm glad you kids are so smart. I don't know what we'd do without you." Lilly said. Moments later they heard a pounding on the front door.

Oliver raced down the stairs and led the paramedics quickly up the stairs to where Michael was. One of them took a reading of his life functions. "He's unconscious, but respiration (breathing) is ok. Heart rate is slow." The woman said. The other stepped over and took a reading of Michael's blood sugar. "I'll stabilize him then we can get him outside and get him to the hospital." He said. Jimmy was watching them both very closely, seeing exactly what they were doing. Everyone else was too nervous to notice the details of what was being done. But Jimmy seemed to be able to find calm within all the panic by focusing on what was being done to his brother. The man injected a needle into Michael's right arm. "Alright, let's get him onto the gurney." The woman said. They lifted him at both ends, supporting his midsection and secured him on the gurney they had brought with them. When they had Michael in the ambulance the Okens followed it to the hospital.

They all waited in the waiting room for news of Michael's fate. This time no one said a single word. They were all too worried to even think straight. About a half hour later a doctor came out of the double doors marked 'ICU' which stood for intensive care unit. "I'm Doctor Reed. Michael is doing just fine we just needed to get everything back up to where it needed to be. He's asleep right now but you can all go in and see him. He's in room twenty-three." She said.

They all quickly filed in through the doors and made their way down the hall to the room where Michael was lying, asleep on a bed. Lilly sat next to the bed and ran her hand over Michael's forehead. Minutes later he awoke. "I really gotta get better at this whole diabetes thing, huh?" He said hazily. "Don't worry about that right now. We're just glad you're ok." Lilly said. "Don't scare us like that anymore Mikey." Jimmy said. Michael grinned. "Sorry." He whispered. They sat around him talking to him. The each offered him comfort and told him they would help him figure things out. After a few hours had gone by two doctors stepped through the door. One of them was Doctor Reed, the woman that they had seen earlier and the other was Doctor Dorian, a doctor they had a passing familiarity with. "We need to talk to Michael about how he's handling things." Dr. Dorian said. "Okay." Oliver said, remaining exactly where he was standing. "After that he needs to rest so if you could leave for a few hours, it should be okay to see him then." Dr. Reed said. No one argued. The Okens simply left the room.

An hour later it was lunch time so they left the lounge at the end of the hall and went down to the cafeteria to eat. They hadn't even made it half way through their lunch when an orderly came jogging up to them. "Are you the parents of Michael Oken?" He asked Lilly and Oliver. "Yes, what's wrong?" Oliver asked. "…Umm… we can't find him." The man said. "What do you mean you can't find him?" Lilly demanded. "Umm… the doctors left him about ten minutes ago and when I came in to bring him some juice he was gone. There where pillows stuffed under the sheets like he was trying to make it look like he was still there if someone walked by." The orderly said. "We hafta find him!" Oliver said. "I've already alerted security." The orderly said. "They won't find him. He won't be found if he doesn't want to be." Lilly said.

"Alright, we'll look places near him room." Oliver said. So they returned to his room and began looking in the surrounding rooms and the other rooms down the hallway. But he was nowhere to be found. Jimmy and Rose branched off from their parents and walked down another hallway into another section of the hospital. "I need a soda or something. I'm getting lightheaded." Jimmy said. They walked a little further and Jimmy pulled out some money. "There's a machine." Rose said pointing. Jimmy got a soda from the machine and drank down half the bottle. "Okay I'm good." Jimmy said. They walked down the hallway and turned onto another. They didn't really know where they were going; they were just walking hoping to find their brother. When they rounded another corner Jimmy's eyes widened. "There he is." Jimmy said. "Where?" Rose asked. "There. Right there." Jimmy said pointing at Michael who was sitting amongst about five other kids. Three of which were boys and two were girls. Michael wasn't hard to distinguish because he as the only one in the room with hair. As they got closer to the room Jimmy spotted a sign outside the room that labeled the room 'Pediatric Oncology Room 34'. "Hang on, don't go in. Not yet." Jimmy said putting his hand out to stop Rose.

They watched Michael sitting with the kids. He was talking and laughing with them. They all seemed to be having a good time. "Ok, let's give him a few more minutes." Jimmy said quietly. They watched as Michael carried on with the group of kids. But before long he spotted them watching him. Feeling caught he simply surrendered. He came out and faced them. "Having a good time Mikey?" Jimmy asked slightly sarcastically. He said nothing; there really wasn't anything he could say. "Why'd you run off like that? You scared everybody, you know that?" Rose said. "I don't know… I guess I was scared. The doctors where just standing around me, asking all these questions. It was really freaking me out. So when they were gone I snuck out… and came here." Michael said. "Why?" Jimmy asked. "Cause they were the first kids I found. And they're all really nice. I made friends with one of them. His name is Charlie. I might wanna visit him some time. He told me the doctors say he's almost better. So he'll get to go home soon." Michael said. "That's cool. But…uhh… which one is Charlie?" Jimmy asked awkwardly. "Charlie's the kid with the blue and white stripped beanie cap on his head." Michael said. He pointed and waved at the boy he was referring to. They smiled at each other. "Hang on I'll come back with you guys. I just wanna say goodbye first." Michael said. "Go ahead." Jimmy said. Michael walked back into the room and said goodbye to all the kids in the room. He shook Charlie's hand and then came back out.

When they got back to the room Michael had a surprise. While his parents were standing in the doorway looking concerned, there were also two other people there to greet him that he was happy to see. "Doin' better Michael?" Susan Stewart asked. Her mother Miley was standing in the back of the room with her brother Jackson. Susan gave him a big hug and then pulled away suddenly. She looked around at everyone. "What? I thought he needed it!" She said blushing a little bit. "You'll be fine Mike." Robbie Rod said reassuringly.

"Michael, the doctors said once we found you, that you can go home in about an hour cause your fine now. But when we get home you have to go straight to bed. That's okay cause it'll be past your bedtime anyway." Lilly said. "Okay, so do I have to go to school tomorrow?" Michael asked. "No, you're staying home till the end of the week so you can recover. But this weekend we have an appointment to have you talk to Doctor Reed so you can get this all straightened out and none of this'll happen again." Lilly said.

An hour later Michael had changed and was ready to go home. "Wait. I have to go say goodbye to somebody." Michael said. "Who?" Oliver asked. "My friend, Charlie. He's in the room they found me in." Michael responded. "Make it quick, you need to get home and get to bed." Oliver said. "Jimmy go with him." Lilly said. Jimmy and Michael walked side-by-side down the corridors until they found the room where Michael had been. The children in the room were all in their beds sipping juice and reading story books. Charlie looked up when Michael came in. "Hey Michael, so you're going home?" Charlie said. "Yeah. So when do you go home?" Michael asked. Jimmy pulled Michael back slightly and whispered in his ear "Michael, he has cancer, he might not be going home for a while." Jimmy understood the sign at the door that read 'Pediatric Oncology' to mean that all of these kids had cancer, and unfortunately some of them would never be going home. He figured Michael may not understand that. It may not have come up while they were talking. "I know. He told me. But he's almost better." Michael whispered back into Jimmy's ear. He then looked back at Charlie. "Doctor Wilson told me I'm gonna be going home next week." Charlie replied. "Cool. Maybe we can hang out then." Michael said. "I'd like that." He grabbed a pad of paper off of the nightstand and wrote something on it. "Here's my number. I live on Chase Street." Charlie said. "That's about a ten minute walk from our house Michael." Jimmy told him. "Thanks. See ya soon." Michael said. He reached up and hugged Charlie who smiled and hugged him back. "Ok, Michael, we have to go now." Jimmy said. "See ya." Michael said, waving to all the children in the room.

They came back to Michael's room and joined up with their parents and Rose. The Stewarts had already left. "Ok, let's go. It's getting late." Oliver said. They all made their way out to the car. On the way home they spoke some, but not a lot. "Michael tell them about your new friend." Jimmy said. "Yeah, Michael, tell us." Lilly said. "Ok, his name is Charlie. He had some kind of stomach cancer. But it's gone now. He just needs to get one more treatment, then he gets to go home, next week." Michael said. "So are you gonna hang out with him when he gets home?" Lilly asked. "I hope so. He gave me his number." Michael said, handing his mother the piece of paper that had been in his pocket. "Charlie Elliott. Is he a nice kid?" Lilly asked. "Yeah. He likes baseball just like me. We might play catch or something." Michael said. "Sounds like fun." Oliver said.

When they got home it was late. "Jimmy take your brother up and make sure he gets into bed right away." Lilly said. Jimmy walked up the stairs behind Michael. "Get into your pajamas and I'll come in and tell you a story ok?" Jimmy asked. "I'm almost eleven! I don't need you to tell me a story." Michael said. "You not almost eleven. Your birthday isn't for another ten months. I'll be fifteen in about eight months though… So no story huh?" Jimmy asked. "No story. But come in and we can talk." Michael said. "Okay, that works." Jimmy said. About two minutes later Michael said "Come on in." Jimmy came in, Michael was already in bed under the covers, so he sat at the foot of the bed. "So what do you wanna talk about little bro?" Jimmy asked. "Not diabetes!" Michael said decisively. "How about school then?" Jimmy asked. "Okay. Umm… that was great; you won all your arguments at your first two debate meets." Michael said. "Yeah, it felt good. Especially after being cut from the wrestling team. But it's fun doing debate, cause Alice is on my team and well we make a great team… and she's so cute… and smart… and cute…" Jimmy said, trailing off. "Jimmy!" Michael said loudly. "What?" "You were getting distracted, talking about Alice. Too much information by the way." Michael said. "Was I? Sorry." Jimmy said. "She's really cool, but you don't need to tell me that much." Michael said. "That's true. So how's school for you? You're gonna join the baseball team next school year, right?" Jimmy asked. "Yeah, me and Susan and Robbie are all gonna try out." Michael said. "That's cool… Well I can't think of anything else to talk about. So 'night." Jimmy said. "'Night." Michael replied. Jimmy left the room and went into his own and went to sleep.

Over the weekend Rose had still not been able to corner Alex to find out why he was acting so strange. So when she got to school on Monday she promised herself she was going to make a determined effort to catch him and get him to talk. Alex was the last person to arrive for their first class. But that seemed to be his intention. He found the only seat that was left. It was as far away from where Rose was sitting as possible. He managed to repeat this same strategy for their next two classes. But when lunch period rolled around Rose was unwilling to fail. She was going to catch him and that's all there was to it. He managed to avoid her for the first ten minutes. He would see her coming and walk the other way, just as he had been doing the week before. For a while it seemed to be working. But Rose formed a plan. She pretended to be going up the stairs in the courtyard but only climbed two stairs. Then she snuck back down behind a group of people and managed to double back around where Alex was standing, without him seeing her. He began to walk off towards the cafeteria when a hand grabbed him firmly. "Gotcha!" Rose said triumphantly. "What? Where've you been? I've been trying to find you." Alex said. "Uh-huh. Yeah. You've been avoiding me for over a week. What's up? Let's hear it." Rose demanded. "It's just that…" He started to say. He couldn't really think of what to say. He thought avoiding her would help bury the feelings he had. But what he hadn't considered was what he would do when he did eventually have to talk to her again. He thought to himself "I love you Rose!... Of course I can't say that… that'd be insane."

"So what is it? Why've you been avoiding me?" Rose asked. "I…don't wanna talk about it." Alex said, looking down and away from her. "Come on. I caught you. Now tell me." Rose insisted. "I can't… It's just… trust me… you don't wanna hear it." Alex said. "Yes I do. I definitely want to hear why my best friend won't have anything to do with me." Rose said. "It's really not what you would think… it's not important. Sorry I avoided you. Okay?" He said, hoping she would drop the line of questioning because the level of tension within him was building to an overload. But there was no such luck. Rose wasn't giving up that easily, she wanted answers. Giving up just wasn't the way Rose operated. "No it's not okay. I want answers right now! Best friends don't keep things from each other." Rose said insistently. "Well I'm keeping this one from you. Chances are you'd be even madder if I did tell you." Alex thought. "Come on don't just stand there and stare. Come on spill it already!" Rose demanded. "NO! I don't wanna talk about it alright? Just leave me alone!" Alex shouted. "I'll leave you alone for right now. But we're not going back to you avoiding me." Rose said. "Fine. But don't ask me to tell you, okay?" Alex asked. "Fine. But eventually I'll figure it out. You'll see." Rose said. "I hope so… but not just yet." Alex thought to himself.

Four months later in February, Jimmy, Alice and Sam were walking down the hallways of Sea View High School. "Sam, how's it going with Summer?" Alice asked. "How's what going with Summer?" Sam asked looking confused. "Are you serious?" Jimmy asked. "Serious about what? What're you guys talking about?" Sam asked, even more confused. "You guys went to homecoming together." Jimmy reminded him. "So? And what's that got to do with anything?" Sam asked. "Apparently nothing." Alice said through gritted teeth. "Am I missing something here? It seems like you two know something and it's just totally escaped me." Sam said. "Did you ask her out again?" Alice asked. "No…uhh…I guess I thought about it… but I still couldn't seem to talk to her. You know?" Sam said. "No we don't know. Why couldn't you just do it?" Jimmy asked. "That's true you don't know. With you two it was really easy. But I'm not that good at talking to girls. Especially ones I haven't known my whole life." Sam said. "You should just do it man. Just ask her out. It's easier than you think. All you hafta do is walk up to her and say 'Summer, wanna go out some time?' It's quick, easy, and painless. Trust me." Jimmy said. "But what if she says no?" Sam asked. "She's not gonna say no Sam. You're a catch. Trust me she'll say yes." Alice said. "But what if I…" Sam started to say. "You won't Sam. You'll do fine." Jimmy said. "So I just ask her? That's it?" Sam asked. "That's it. There she is now. Be yourself. Relax." Alice said. Jimmy reached out and gave Sam a small nudge.

Sam made his way slowly and hesitantly over to where Summer was sitting. Much to his luck she was alone at the moment, which made things easier for him. "Hey Sam." Summer said. "Hey." Sam mumbled. He sat down across from her and tried to start what he was hoping would lead to any easy 'yes'. "Hey…umm…Summer…you know… it was fun…the dance…youwannagooutagainsometime?" Sam said quickly. But he was mumbling and facing down toward the table. So all Summer could see was Sam's dark red hair and some of the freckles on his cheeks. "I'm sorry what did you say?" Summer said, stifling a laugh. This made things all the more difficult on Sam. "Uhhmm… you wanna go out with me some time?" Sam asked clearly. "No. You waited too long. I might be seeing someone." Summer said. Sam got up and walked away before he was wounded any further.

He headed back over to Jimmy and Alice. He had a sinking feeling in his chest. A feeling of having lost. "So how'd it go?" Jimmy asked immediately. "Awesome!" Sam said, giving Jimmy a disgusted look. "Thanks a lot you guys!" Sam said. "Sorry. We didn't know she'd say no." Alice said. "You should've known I waited too long!" Sam said. "Why're you mad at us man? You were the one that waited too long." Jimmy said. Alice smacked him in the side of his stomach. "Gee thanks a lot!" Sam said. He wanted to kick something; he was so angry and disappointed at the same time. "Hi Sam." A girl named Emily Ross said as she walked by waving cutely and grinning at him. "Hi…" He said inaudibly. "You guys should've warned me about… hang on I'll be right back." Sam said.

He jogged off and caught up with Emily. "Hey Emily…" Sam said. "Yes Sam?" Emily said smiling a big smile. "Will you go out with me?" He asked confidently. "Yeah, alright. I'd like that a lot." Emily said. "Awesome!" Sam exclaimed awkwardly. He moved off, walking back towards Jimmy and Alice with a big smile on his face. "Sam!" Emily called out. He turned back around. "Yeah?" He asked. She came up to him and grabbed his hand. He thought he was going to pass out. She pulled out a purple metallic magic marker and wrote on his hand. He looked at what she had written, but he was too giddy to recognize what it was she had written on the back of his hand. "What is it?" He uttered. "My number." Emily said giggly lightly. "Call me… we can figure out what we're gonna do on our first date. I can't wait to tell my friends I have a boyfriend now. I mean it's not like it was a race to get a boyfriend or anything. I don't want you to get the wrong idea or anything. I wasn't really thinking about anybody else." Emily said. "I know… you've been saying 'hi' to me a lot lately." Where the only words that came out of Sam's mouth. "Yeah, I'm glad it finally worked. You're funny. I think I like that." Emily said. What was funny at the moment was that Sam was standing very still staring at Emily with a deadpan expression. The reality of what had just happened and what he had just done had now caught up with him and he was happy and nervous all that the same time. "So I'll see you later… call me." Emily said. "I will." Sam said simply. And he would. He was determined not to drop the ball with Emily the way he had with Summer. She turned to face him again, a little surprised because he was still rooted to the exact same spot he had been when she wrote her phone number on his hand. She smiled slightly at this. "By the way… I think boys with freckles and gorgeous dimples named Sam Brooks are really cute." She said smiling. She waited for a few seconds, but Sam said nothing, he was too awe-stricken, then she walked off.

Moments later Alice and Jimmy came up to him and stared at him. He was still standing in the exact same spot, stiff as a board, with the same silly look on his face. "What just happened Sam?" Alice asked. Sam said nothing. "What were you and Emily Ross talking about? What did she write on your hand man?" Jimmy asked. He still said nothing. Jimmy grabbed Sam's hand and looked at what was written on it. "She wrote her phone number on your hand? Why?" Jimmy asked. "I think I just asked her out. I don't know why. It just hit me and then I did it." Sam said. "And?" Alice asked. "I think I have a girlfriend now. At least that's what she said." Sam said. "And it's not Summer." Alice said. "I'm okay with that." Sam said. "Way to go man!" Jimmy said, clapping Sam on the back causing him to move forward a little bit. They walked down the hall for their next class. Jimmy and Alice were talking but Sam just smiled and said nothing.

Meanwhile Rose was walking down the hall for lunch at Sea View Middle school with her best friend Alex. He still had not told her the reason for his distancing himself from her months ago. He was still torn apart inside. But he was managing to deal with it and not become emotional on the outside. But he needed to say something. He needed to clear the air. He was a good friend and a good person so he had to clear things up with Rose. Even if he didn't actually tell her the truth, he felt any kind of explanation was better than none at all. "Rose you know how I was avoiding you a while back?" He asked. "Yeah, it's been four months. It took you that long to decide to tell me?" Rose asked. "Yeah…well I wasn't sure how you would take it." Alex said. Just then he knew he was going to come right out and tell her the truth. It was better than holding it in. He would just have to deal with the consequences, whatever they might be.

"So what was it that made you avoid me like that?" Rose asked. "Well I think I lo…" He started but he saw someone that made him stop for a moment. It was Kristen Bauer, the girl that had comforted him when he fled the play. For some reason seeing Kristen again made him stop what he was doing. "You think you what?" Rose asked. "I think I was sick. Yeah. I had to leave that night cause I felt like I might throw up. I went straight home and went to bed. I felt bad that whole night. I'm sorry I didn't say anything to you. It's just that it happened all of a sudden." Alex said. He felt awful lying to Rose. But all of a sudden all of the reasons he couldn't tell her the truth had flooded back into his mind. "Okay. I understand that. But why then did you start avoiding me the next week and until I cornered you?" Rose said. He had hoped the initial explanation would suffice, but Rose was way too smart to accept it just like that. "Well I was sick for like a week after the play." Alex said. "If you were that sick then why didn't you stay home?" Rose asked. "Cause my parents didn't believe me. I was just sick to my stomach. No fever. Nothing they could see." Alex said. In a way this was true. He was sick to his stomach, but not in a literal sense. He was love sick. "And that was so hard to tell me? You couldn't have just told me right off?" Rose asked. "Well I didn't want to get close to you cause I didn't want you to catch what I had." Alex said. "Ok, but still after that, when I cornered you and we started do stuff together again. Why couldn't you have told me then?" Rose asked. "I thought you might think it was really lame. You know avoiding you cause I was sick. That sounds stupid doesn't it? Now that I think of it, you're right, I should've told you." Alex said. "Yeah I'm right. But you're forgiven. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't forgive you?" Rose said. "So we're cool then?" Alex asked. "Yeah we're cool." Rose said. Of course inside Alex was anything but cool. Inside his heart was still torn into pieces and he was still in deep emotional turmoil. But he was now learning to deal with it. He would just have to learn to ignore all the regret and discomfort that being around Rose brought. After all she was his best friend. He loved her and couldn't stand not to be with her, even though he couldn't be with her.

When the weekend rolled around Jimmy and Alice came strolling in the front door of his house. They didn't kiss each other all the time as they had done for a while. Instead they said cute things to each other that made other people almost as uncomfortable as the kissing. "You're so cute." Jimmy said, smiling at Alice. "You're cuter." Alice said. "No you are." Jimmy said. "Enough. We get it." Rose said. "Okay, but you are cute Allipop." Jimmy said. "You too…Jimmy…pop." Alice said. "You know that's what you're dad and I used to call each other. 'Lillypop and Olliepop'" Lilly told her son. "Ohhh gross!! Blehh!" Jimmy said, imitating throwing up. He looked at Alice, "Never again." He said.

To learn more about diabetes/cancer check out this site (and others) online:

-The American Diabetes Association

-The American Cancer Association

Notes to the readers:

*Reviews are much appreciated!!

*Sorry this one took so long. I've had a lot going on. I will try to make future chapters come a little quicker. But I can't make any promises. There are quite a few left. So keep checking.

*In the next chapter it is going to be moved forward to the summer when Jimmy turns 15 (And Rose will turn 13, and Michael will turn 11.) But Jimmy's birthday happens first.

** This is the tenth chapter of my saga "A New Life". If you haven't read my first saga you may not know where these characters are coming from. So you might want to read it, or at least "Meant to Be Parts 5-9". This story takes place 3-4 years before the end of "Meant To Be".

***Lilly and Oliver, and Miley and Jackson are in their thirties/forties. Jimmy is 14. Rose is 12. Michael and Susan (Miley's daughter), and Robbie Rod (Jackson's son) are all 10.

****If you want to find my other stories (My first saga) click on my screen name on the top of this page, and you can find my stories on my profile. If you want to stay updated as to when I post new chapters, please subscribe to my username!!

*****There will be more in the near future. So I hope you will continue reading. I have no idea how long this saga will last. I have ideas for many more chapters. So it will most likely be at least a little bit longer than "Meant to Be" probably quite a bit longer. Only time will tell.