I'm a survivor DM x J3T

Trigger warning

This is different to most of the one shots that I have done before so please be kind when you leave a comment.

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George p.o.v

"Danny stay with me please," I beg, my husband hasn't been feeling well for a while now, but I thought a couple of days ago he was starting to get better. Then I quickly changed my mind when he collapsed in the kitchen. I immediately knew something wasn't right so I called the paramedics and they took him away. They let me go in the ambulance with him but after that they told me to wait until the doctor called me in. They said they had a lot of tests to run to try and figure out what is wrong with him and it's going to take a while. I want to be with him and support him, but I can't and it's stressing me out. He's going to panic so much when he wakes up and they are running tests on him and I'm nowhere to be seen.

Then a doctor came out and the paramedic pointed him in my direction. He walked over with a clipboard. "I understand that Daniel Murgan is your husband?" he asks me and I nod, for a moment I lost all ability to speak. "I understand this is a worrying time for you, but I can assure you that we will do all that we can to find out what is wrong with your husband and make him better again," the doctor tells me, then he asks me general questions on what I have noticed about my husband's general health leading up to today's mystery collapse. I tried to be as honest as I can. He said that it was alright that I was worried about him consider Danny has been ill for over a month now and we had no idea what was causing it.

Jorel knows that Danny has been and so do the others because it has had an effect on our rehearsals for the upcoming tour. Danny would start off and he would be full of energy but he wouldn't be able to continue after lunch and he would end up falling asleep on the stage for an hour or two. I decide to call Jorel to let him know what's going on since he was with the others today and we were supposed to be going in a little while because I had told them that Danny was feeling better, well at the time I told them he was genuinely feeling better but I can't say he is now. He picked up after two rings like he was expecting me to call him or something.

J: You know, we would have accepted if you told us Danny is still ill.

Me: He was fine until about twenty minutes ago, honestly. He had perked up to his usual self and he had more energy than before.

J: What happened then, you should have been here like ten minutes ago.

Me: I don't know, he suddenly went pale when we were talking in the kitchen and then all of a sudden he collapsed onto the floor and I had to call 911. I am scared I'm going to lose him Jorel.

J: I know and I am sorry if I sound snappy, we just want to know what's wrong with him as much as you do.

Me: It's okay Jorel, I know we are all frustrated at this point. He's annoyed that he's been so ill and the doctors haven't been able to give him an answer that he needs. They won't let me see him yet either, they are still doing tests on him.

J: Aw George, want me to come up and stay with you two? Hopefully now if they do a full head to toe check on Danny they will find what's wrong.

Me: If you wouldn't mind Jay, I feel like if they do tell me what's wrong then it's going to be something major.

J: I'll be on my way in a minute. The others say they'll come over when we know more. We will all get through this together.

Me: Thank you Jorel. I hope we can figure out what's wrong. I'll see you in a bit.

J: Yeah, one way or another we will find out. See you in a little bit.

Once the phone call is done I nervously flip my phone around by balancing it on my leg and then run my fingers down to the bottom of the phone before flipping it over to the other side and repeating until Jorel comes. The doctor came back and told me they sedated Danny while they were continuing to do some tests and scans on him. I mentioned Jorel was coming and Danny gets stressed in these scenarios on his own so since I can't be there until the tests are done they are making him sleep until they can reunite me with him. I have noticed that Danny has been losing a lot of weight without even trying which worries me. He also doesn't even eat much in the first place anymore.

He's been tired and at one point I decided to carry him around for the day because he was so weak he could barely hold his head up. His stomach was a bit swollen so at first, I thought he had eaten more than normal but after I observed him for a little while I knew he was actually barely eating. Jorel arrives and we hug, Danny's still being tested on so it's going to be a little bit of a wait. "Have you seen him yet?" Jorel asks, even though he probably knows it's not been long since we talked, and I did tell him that I haven't been able to see him yet. "Not yet, I explained more of his symptoms to the doctor and he looked concerned and said they were going to have more tests done. I think it's something really bad," I tell Jorel.

"Why, how's he been? I know he's been more tired than usual," Jorel asks me. I think about it for a moment, they would have been more frustrated because they haven't seen the symptoms that I have with Danny. "He's been really weak a lot of the time, he's lost a bit of weight all though I am not sure how much and he barely eats anything lately because he feels so nauseous all the time." I tell him, that bit of information was enough to make him more concerned. "That is bad, did you convince him to go the doctor at all before now?" he asks me, and I nodded. "We went Friday, the doctor just told us it was nothing and sent us away even though Danny was desperate to feel better than he has been doing," I tell Jorel.

I would have punched that doctor if Danny wasn't there and needed my support and care. I was just angry that we weren't being listened to. We wanted the doctor to just listen to us and not dismiss our claim outright. If he listened to us, then Danny wouldn't be in the emergency department. "I think you need to change who your primary care doctor is after this is all over. Danny should have been listened to first time with these symptoms," Jorel says, and then we make ourselves comfortable on the chairs and wait for the doctors to finish their testing. It was another hour before the doctor came out to tell us anything else. I saw from the look on his face that it wasn't going to be good news. He came up to us and we both stood up before he led us into the family room.

"So, we have most of the test results back and I think at this point we do have a pretty solid reason as to why Danny collapsed earlier today. The scans around his abdomen area has revealed there is a tumour on his liver, we have reasons to believe that it is cancer, but we are still waiting on his biopsy results," he tells us, something in the back of my mind told me I had suspected him to have cancer based on those symptoms but now that it might be confirmed it worries me. "How bad is that going to be?" Jorel asks, asking the one question I can't bring myself to ask. "Based on the size of the tumour, we plan to start a course of chemo and then once the tumour has shrunk down a little bit we should be able to remove it," the doctor says.

"I think Danny would accept that plan. Will we be able to see him now?" I ask, I just want to comfort my baby and make sure he is okay before we tell him the bad news. "Yes, we are bringing him around now and you should be able to see him now," he tells me and then shows us where in the emergency department Danny is currently in. He mentioned that he was going to move Danny up to a ward once he has woken up until tomorrow morning so that he can get the biopsy results in. He told us not to tell Danny our suspicions, so we don't worry him as we can't say for definite at this point in time whether or not Danny does have cancer. "Danny's husband and best friend are here," the doctor says to the nurse who is monitoring Danny's condition while he wakes up.

"Okay, we're just focusing on bringing him round from the sedatives at the moment. I think if it all goes to plan he should be opening his eyes for the first time in the next five or ten minutes," she says, and it made me think of Danny's ex Reese, she is always this caring with her patients and when Danny gets sick. We can talk to her and we are still close to each other which is nice. I need to let her know what is going on with Danny when we know more so we can figure out the custody while Danny goes through treatment. We know he's going to get worse before he gets better and it's going to be hard to explain all of this to their six-year-old. I take Danny's hand and I hold it, hoping he can recognise that it's my hand holding his as he becomes more aware of what's going on around him.

Jorel is in the middle of updating the other on the little information we have on what's wrong with my husband. We are all worried, but at the same time once we know what's wrong we can easily sort things out. The nurse was right, Danny started waking up about five minutes after we were allowed to see him. He knew I was there because I felt him starting to weakly squeeze my hand back. "I'm here Danny. Don't worry baby," I tell him and I think it made him feel more at ease with himself and what's going on around him. Jorel was playing with Danny's hair to help keep him calm. I was suspecting he might be worried because he doesn't remember much from this morning. "George?" Danny asks, he was struggling to talk but he just had his ventilator tube removed.

"I'm here Danny, Jorel's here too. Don't worry baby I will never leave you," I tell my husband and I felt him squeeze my hand a little bit tighter. "What happened?" All I can remember is being in the kitchen," Danny asks when he feels a little bit brighter. He's been awake for a few minutes. "You passed out in the kitchen, the doctors are now looking into why you've been so ill for over a month now and we don't know why," I tell him, I felt bad for keeping the information about the possibility of him having liver cancer hidden but right now I just want him to chill out and to relax with Jorel and I being here to comfort him when he needs it. When he does find out if it is denied or confirmed. "I don't like that it has taken this long for them to take me seriously," Danny says, and I couldn't agree with him more.

"I would have kicked off the last time we were there if I wasn't so worried about you buddy. It is ridiculous that it's been nearly two months since you first got ill, and we kept going back to the doctors and they kept trying to sweep it under the carpet," I tell him, feeling like I could be honest with Danny about this. It's as close as I can get to talking about the situation with him at the moment. "We'll all help you get better though Danny, maybe today we can finally find out what's wrong," Jorel says and I felt so glad he was here to support the two of us. Danny sort of finally realised that I wasn't lying when I said that Jorel had come to visit him in the hospital. "We still don't know?" Danny asks, then I saw a green tint to his cheeks and Jorel grabbed the bowl right on time. I hate how ill my baby is and I can't do anything to make him feel any better.

"Yeah, they have done a lot of testing and not all of the results have come in yet baby. Soon though," I tell him. I feel so nervous to tell him if he has cancer or not, he's going to be so devastated as he rightly should. Then he is going to get even more upset and say that he's going to ruin our career when in reality he will be on chemo for 8 weeks and then they would take the affected part of the liver away and he would be cured. That's if the doctors confirm that the tumour he has is cancer. It might be benign, and he might still need that treatment route. I'm praying so much that it is benign and that my poor bear doesn't have cancer. Now we just have to wait for the doctor to come back and give us the news.

We are going to be taken to a ward soon, they want to keep him in overnight just because he has been having these symptoms for almost two months and he collapsed so they want to keep an eye on him. The nurse left when Danny started talking so we could have a personal chat and we could keep him calm now that he was going to be alright. She came back in to check on how he is doing and Jorel told her that he has been sick once since he woke up which led to her carrying out a couple of checks and then saying they'd try some water with him later on when he hasn't been sick for a couple of hours and the doctor should be in soon and then we can know for sure what is wrong with my husband. I keep hold of Danny's hand because I can't hug Danny while he's in the bed and hooked up to all the wires and machines.

The doctor came in about an hour later and our worst fears were confirmed. The tumour that is on Danny's liver is cancerous and the doctor explained it all to Danny in a way that he was going to understand. When the doctor left to give Danny time to process that information and consider if he is definitely going for the treatment that they are offering him. He cried as soon as he got given a moment of peace and I decided to mentally say fuck it to all of the wires on my husband and hold him close, so he can cry on my shoulder and we can cuddle for the first time in a few hours. I was so scared when Danny collapsed and even now I am still scared but not as bad. "We'll get through this together Danny I promise," I tell him.

He sniffed in between his sobs and Jorel was rubbing his back to help me try and calm Danny down. It took a few minutes, but we eventually managed it and he was left exhausted. "Do you want to give the treatment a try Danny?" I ask him, the doctor has given him the pros and cons of the chemo and the surgery he will have in a couple of months' time to remove the portion of the liver that has been damaged. "Yeah, I wanna get better. I feel bad that those concerts we have next month will probably have to be cancelled though," he says. I'm glad he's accepted the treatment but I'm less happy with his upset over the couple of shows we have next month. "Don't worry Danny. Your health is more important than a few shows we can do when you're better," Jorel tells Danny.

I was so happy that Jorel is also supportive and more optimistic than I was expecting. He used the words "when you get better" instead of "if you get better" which to me shows that he was confident that my hubby is going be just fine in a few months' time. The treatment is going to be hard for us as a family, Theresa has to know so we can sort out custody with Scarlett while Danny's gone through treatment. Asia also has to know so for Ava because I have her on weekends like Danny has Scarlett and they both will have to find out that Danny is poorly and has to have eight weeks of hospital treatment then a big operation and they won't understand all of it but if they understand enough then that's fine by us.

The doctor came in and asked Danny about his decision with treatment and Danny told him that he was going to opt in for the treatment and I offered to be a potential organ donor if things don't work out the way we want them to since I am a match with Danny. "That's good, I'm sorry we have to give you that diagnosis, but we will make you better. I recommend you get some rest now as you will be staying in overnight," the doctor says and then he leaves after saying that he'd come and check on Danny later on. I saw the smallest smile on Danny's face. I have never heard a doctor say sorry that he had to tell someone they were really ill but that must be how that doctor rolls.

I let Danny cuddle up to me and I was rubbing his shoulder as he rests his head on mine. Once Danny has fallen asleep I am going to let the mothers of our children know the situation, so they can help us through this. "Just remember through this Danny, I love you," I tell him, and I kiss his cheek. He falls asleep not long after that and he told me that he will always love me back just before he fell asleep which was cute. He looked like he was a few hours ago, when I thought he was fine. "Management are postponing the concerts which haven't been announced yet so that we can get Danny better first," Jorel says and I smiled. I am glad they are here to support us as well as the band and our family while we go through this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 6 weeks later~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny has been on chemotherapy now for the last four weeks. We decided to start it two weeks after he got the diagnosis, so we can arrange family to come and help look after him and to let Asia and Theresa tell our daughters and arrange custody dates around the time we go to the hospital to have the treatment through IV with a port they placed in his chest. He was fine the first two times he has had it done now he gets so ill and so tired and his hair is now coming out in clumps which is making him so upset. He had the treatment done yesterday and he threw up so much when we got home last night. I've been looking after him and trying to get him to rest as much as I can. Theresa is bringing Scarlett over today to spend some time with Danny.

He's peacefully sleeping on the couch with his blanket and his beanie on to hide the hair that is barely there now. I want to shave my head to support him, but I haven't had the chance yet and part of me was waiting for the moment when Danny loses all his hair. Jorel and the rest of the guys plan on shaving their heads for Danny too. He has no idea this is all going on though, we've been distracting him from the hair loss with other things like music lyrics. Scarlett knows some of the things that Danny is experiencing because she will see it eventually when he takes his beanie off that his blonde hair is falling out and how sick he has been. Theresa and Asia have been so supportive with it all. Theresa has even come over every week just to keep an eye on Danny, so I can sleep.

I have been sleeping alright, better than Danny most nights, but if he stays up most of the night being ill then I stay up too to look after him and then we both take naps throughout the day to keep us going. Theresa has always remained close with Danny even though they broke up a couple of years ago and I liked seeing their friendship and how her nurse side takes over with us. "Hello George, how's he been this time?" Theresa asks me when I let her in and we go to the kitchen, so she can have a drink. Scarlett's in school for now but I'll pick her up later. "He's been bad, spent all night throwing up so I managed to get him resting on the couch. I think this is the worst he has been since we started this whole thing," I tell her, and we look to the living room where Danny is sleeping.

"Poor Danny, has any more of his hair fallen out since you last showed me?" she asks me, I was surprised that Danny has lost hair in such big clumps, but it was the side effects of the chemotherapy like his nausea and throwing up has been. Once he is done with the treatment though, his hair will grow back, and he won't have these symptoms anymore. "Yeah, almost all of it now. It's started coming out in big clumps last night, especially when I tried to cool him down," I tell her, feeling like I could be honest. He's been so upset over losing his hair and it was breaking my heart to see it when he tries to get his hair out of his eyes and it just falls out and then he cries. "Poor Danny, have you been able to get any medication in him to help with the fever and the pain?" she asks me.

"No, he's been throwing it up again pretty much straight away and he's been too panicked for me to be able to use his port to give him any," I tell her, she is more confident in keeping Danny calm when giving him medicine so she will be able to help me make my poor hubby feel a bit more comfortable while he rests and he tries to get better. She preps the medicine into the needle and she prepare Danny's port while I play with his hair to keep him distracted while he sleeps in case he does wake up while she's trying to make him feel a little better while he goes through treatment. I wish more often than not that I am in his position and I have to go through the treatment and not him, but this is the way that it's gone.

Danny slept for another two hours before he woke up for the first time this morning. Theresa gave him some water through the port to help rehydrate him and hopefully now he has had some anti sickness medication he can actually drink some water and keep it down. "Hey Danny, how are you feeling now buddy?" I ask him, I sit next to him on the sofa and rub his cheek to make him happy since I can't touch his hair right now. "I feel a little bit better than last night, but still quite awful to be honest," he replies, and I take his hand in mine and he gives it a weak squeeze and I squeeze it back. I prefer to run my fingers through his hair, but he doesn't have a lot of it left now. It's so weird to feel the hedgehog hair that he has at parts of his head.

We might just shave all of his hair off tonight to make the loss easier on him. Theresa is making both of us lunch and Danny will have a little drink of water. I tried to tell her that I didn't need her to make my lunch for me, but she insisted because she wants to help us, and she thinks I need to rest too. Danny managed to keep the water down for a little bit and I had my lunch while he was resting. I finally got him to sit up even if it was only for five minutes and he was heavily supported by the cushions and the couch itself. Theresa sits on the other side of him and he smiled. I'm hoping now the medicine is working now and he's feeling a little bit better. I know he said that he felt a little bit better when he first woke up but that's just that temporary symptom easing.

He took a little afternoon nap and Theresa asked me if I would take him back to bed so he can have a comfier rest and she suggested that I snuggle up with him while he sleeps, and she would make sure that if I do want to pick Scarlett up later then she will make sure I am up on time. She basically just told me to go and take a nap with my husband and I chuckled at her before picking up the sleeping Danny in my arms and carried him up to our bedroom, so I could do exactly what the nurse orders. Danny seems so much more peaceful when he sleeps, which is a big difference to when he is awake, and he has to deal with the symptoms of the cancer. I think the worse part of it so far was when the hair loss started.

He woke up a little bit later than I did that morning and as he sat up there were big clumps of blonde hair on the pillow. He didn't notice at first, but he did when he went to brush his hair, so we could go out to Walmart to get some shopping done. He called for me and he sounded scared but for his sake I remained calm and I walked into the bathroom with Danny holding his hair in his hands and with tears in his eyes. I hugged him tightly and told him everything was going to be okay and that we were going to cover it up if he wanted to and it is all going to grow back when he gets better. That did make it a little easier on him but it's still hard to get used to. I let him borrow my snapbacks to make it a little easier on him and he likes wearing my beanies.

I get Danny settled into bed and I get changed out of my jeans into trackies, it's okay to not look to presentable if I am only going to the school gates and back. I don't think Danny will be feeling well enough to do the school run with me, but I will give him the option if he is awake when I have to leave in a few hours' time. I take the beanie off Danny's head just because he doesn't usually sleep with it on because then his head will be warm and that's not good for the fever he keeps getting. More blonde hair was stuck to the beanie and more fell out with the friction, but I cleaned it all up and left his hair alone, I don't think he is quite ready yet for all of his hair to be gone and for him to become bald. That might happen before his surgery once he is done with chemo. He gets a two week break from chemo before the surgery happens providing the tumour has shrunk enough.

I felt my heart was full that night, both Scarlett and Ava came over. Ava was having a sleepover but since Theresa practically is Danny's personal nurse Scarlett gets to stay the weekend with us. At one point it was the four of us snuggled up on the couch, the girls on the side of either of us. Danny kept his beanie off too and told Scarlett she could take the shaver and shave all his hair off which is a big step for him. I felt immensely proud of him that night, next it's my turn. Scarlett said she wanted to do it, but Danny wasn't comfortable with that, so we told her she could grow her hair really long and we could get it cut and donated to make wigs for little girls with the similar nasty illnesses that Danny has.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ surgery day ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today is the day we have been waiting for, the day of Danny's surgery. Hopefully after today he will be cancer free and on the road to recovery and we can go back to doing what we used to do. I have enjoyed the last three months where we have had a break from the stresses of work but we all want to be back singing our hearts out on the stage. When we are able to do that it will mean that Danny has recovered from the cancer he has bravely been battling these last few months. He's had his two week break from the chemotherapy and even made it to one of Scarlett's school runs which made the little one very happy. He's starting to feel a bit better because he's not going through the chemo anymore.

I'm waiting in his hospital room in the ICU for the surgery to be over. They said because of the surgery that they are doing they will be keeping him under for the rest of today just so that he can rest, and they can monitor his liver functions and get his bilirubin levels up a little bit because the cancer has caused them to be a bit lower than they should be. They just want to make sure that he hasn't gone into liver failure because of the cancer and that there has been no damage done to his liver from the surgery he is currently having. We know the part of the liver they are taking away will grow back healthy and even if it doesn't then he can have half of mine. We decided not to let the girls come and see him tonight and they will see him in a couple of days' time when he is awake and hopefully on the road to feeling better.

He's been in surgery for a couple of hours now and the doctor came to speak to me and said they were done and they managed to remove all of the affected area and he is doing fine. They will be bringing him in in a minute, but they just wanted to do some post op checks in the recovery room. I said that was fine by me and I was happy to wait a little longer to see my hubby. I texted everyone the update and they were really happy. His mom was on her way and she told me I could go home and rest if I wanted. They had set up a bed for me in the room, so I told her I'd rather fall asleep when I know my hubby is in the room and he is going to be fine. She said that was okay, but she wants me to get some rest and look after myself as well.

I spent the rest of the day resting and holding Danny's hand and letting him know that I am here for him and he is so brave, and he is going to be just fine. While I have been sleeping his mom has been talking to him just so that he is comforted just in case the sedation he is under isn't as strong as the nurses told us it was. The nurse said they can bring him round tomorrow morning and then in a couple of days he should be able to go home and continue his recovery there with the support of me and our family and friends. Soon enough we can go back to touring and it will be like nothing ever happened. Well, we will explain to the fans if they ask why we suddenly dropped all our plans for shows during these last few months.

~1 month later~

We just finished an interview where Danny explained why we haven't been touring the last few months and I couldn't be prouder. He is a survivor. He is MY survivor!

And that is the end of another one shot. Leave nice reviews or suggestions below!

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