"You have to have hope Shawn. Otherwise you'll be doomed. You have to think that you will make it through this, no matter what form this takes, how close to death this takes you, you have to stay strong."
Shawn closed his eyes as the doctor examined him. He didn't want to see the stern face as the man knew what was wrong. He didn't want to think about, or see the truth, because it would just bring him more pain.
"Shawn, I'm Mrs. Croria Dioran. I'll be the one treating you for the remainder of this time." Shawn shook hands with her and smiled, she seemed nice.
Too nice, he thought, she probably has bad news all around that fake smile she just threw me.
"Shawn," Miss Croria said, "What would you say if I told you that you would walk out of here healed completely?"
Shawn stared at her. Is she nuts? He gave her a look and said "I'd say you were either crazy, or a bloody miracle worker."
"Well you can. We have the means to completely push patients, even you, into remission. We can heal you, but we will have to start now. You've held this treatment off so long, another week, we might not have been able to stop this thing."
"But I thought there was no cure?"
"Oh there's not, but the chemotherapy works most of the time. The only reason we lose patients is because they weren't young like you, or they simply lost hope. Have faith Shawn, you can beat this."
"What's the time estimate?"
"I'm not giving you that yet. Mostly because if I gave you that, it would simply give you a reason not to go through with the chemo, and you'd just go on without fighting this with everything. If I set a time limit for you now, then you would simply stick to that, and not try longer. We need you to try Shawn. For any of this to work, you have to try."
Jonathan was simply lost in thought, she was giving him hope for a future with Shawn by saying those words, but he couldn't believe them. Not until Shawn was truly in remission. He couldn't hope for more than that yet. Shawn looked so close to death, he was almost a skeleton. Jonathan couldn't stand seeing Shawn like that. It broke him to know he may only have a few months with the boy. He would have to inform Mr. Feeny of the situation, other than that, it was really Shawn's to tell. He needed Mr. Feeny to be aware of it in case anything went wrong, and he was unreachable.
Later that night, while Shawn was knocked out on meds for awhile, Jon made a call to Chet's cell phone. As Shawn's biological father, Jon knew he would want to know. Even though Chet had been gone for a year, and would most likely try to take Shawn, he had a right to know his son was dying. "Chet, Jonathan Turner here, a drop in Shawn's grades prompted me to talk to him about it. I thought there was something wrong, but not this wrong. I knew you'd want to know, and you have the right to know, but I think Shawn should probably tell you himself. Give us a call when you get this, it's rather important. Shawn will be up tomorrow at 6:30, you can call then."
Shawn awoke at the normal 6:30am as always. He still felt sore, but he had to go to school today. He knew Jon had a meeting with Mr. Feeny this morning, assumed they would talk about him. But he got a call early in the morning. "Shawn Hunter speaking."
"Shawnie? That you?"
"Dad? I didn't think you'd call this early, have you found mom?"
"No son, though I did get a call from Mr. Turner last night, he told me you had something to tell me, wouldn't tell himself though…. What is this about Shawn? What haven't you been telling me?"
"Like you care…You ran off after mom, didn't take me with you, and just skipped town. You've been gone a year, no call, no nothing."
"Shawn please. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left it was stupid. Please tell me what's wrong?"
"Dad…" Shawn voice was breaking just over the one sentence. "Turner took me to the doctor's the other day, …. Dad, I'm dying. It's Leukemia. God dad, I'm so scared… Turner has adopted me, after you left they listed me as officially abandoned. He didn't want to do it at first, but after I didn't tell him I'd been sick, he went out and did the whole thing."
"Sweet lord, Shawn! Oh God no… Please me this is some sick joke. You're dying?" Chet sank to floor after hearing this. The shear weight of the whole thing was killing him. "no, nonononono. No Shawn, I… I'm so sorry. I'm coming right over, spend some time with you ok? We'll call your mother from there."
"Ok Dad. I miss you, I love you."
"I love you too Shawnie…"
Shawn hung up the phone and went to use his extra energy to work on homework at Cory's.
