"What's going on?" I open my eyes and my family are standing over me with two paramedics.
"Gracie, you passed out, the paramedics are taking you to the hospital now," Mama squeezes my hand.
"What? Why?" I start to panic a little bit again.
"There's only room for one in the ambulance," I hear a paramedic say as I'm wheeled out onto the sidewalk.
"You go, sweetie, I'll follow in the car," Mama says, Mom takes my hand and doesn't let go as I'm lifted inside the vehicle. It smells just like the hospital, which only makes me panic more.
"Mom?" I squeeze her hand so tight I'm probably cutting off her blood flow, "Am I gonna die?"
"No sweetie, we're gonna get you to the hospital and the doctors are gonna take good care of you and you'll be back home in no time,"
"I'm scared," My breaths become shorter and I slowly fall back into a panic attack.
"We can sedate her," The paramedic says, I shake my head but mom nods, and I drift off to sleep.
Mama's face is the first thing I see when I open my eyes again, everything is blurry and I feel weird, it must be from whatever they used to sedate me.
"Hey, little one," She says, "How are you feeling?" She helps me sit up, I feel too dizzy, "You feel sick?" I nod and she hands me a cardboard bowl and rubs my back. When it's all out, I look up and rub my eyes, Mom is asleep on an armchair in the corner.
"What's wrong with me?" I look up to her, I can see that she doesn't have any answers.
"The doctors are trying to figure that out sweetie," She tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear, "We're gonna get through it," I lean into her. Mom opens her eyes and rushes over to my side to hug me.
"We've got you," She says.
"Did the blood test come back?" I ask them, they look at each other.
"It did, they found a few abnormalities," My breathing speeds up, "You have low white and red blood cell counts," Mom squeezes my hand.
"What does that mean?" I panic.
"We don't know yet love, I'm going to go and tell the nurse you're awake and we can get a doctor in here to tell us what our next step is okay?" She kisses my head and walks out.
"Breath, Gracie," Mama takes my hands.
"I'm really sick, aren't I?" I cry and she rocks me back and forth. I could be dying, I won't get to have the life I wanted, I won't have any life.
"Love, the doctor's here," Mom comes back in with a woman in a white coat and scrubs, she sits back down next to me.
"Hi Gracie, I'm Dr Simons," She pulls a chair over to my bed, "How do you feel?"
"Not great, please can we skip all this, just tell me what's wrong with me,"
"We don't know yet, but we're going to find out, the abnormalities in your blood cell counts leave you vulnerable to infection and anaemia, which is why you passed out, I've ordered a CT Angiogram, it's a scan that will show us your whole body so we can see if there's anything going on in there," I nod, "We'll inject you with some dye, we call it contrast, it just helps us see things a little more clearly, and then once we have the images we'll determine whether or not we need to take a look at those lymph-nodes, we may need to do a biopsy,"
"When can we do the scan?"
"As soon as you're ready," She smiles, "You can bring one of your moms with you if you like," I look to them.
"You go," Mama says to mom, "I'll go tell the kids what's going on, they're all out in the waiting room still," She looks back to me, "You are gonna be fine, okay?" I nod back to her. She watches as a few nurses come in and start to wheel me out of the room, Mom walks next to me.
They lay me down on the slim bed with my feet facing the doughnut-shaped CT scanner, the nurse flushes my IV with saline before hooking it up to the tall IV stand on my left.
"You might feel a little warm as it starts to go in," She says. The sensation that goes through my body is unlike anything I've ever felt, it's uncomfortable and it makes me feel like I'm peeing, "Do you want your mom to stay in here with you?" I nod. She puts a vest on mom that protects her from the radiation and goes into a small room with a window so she can see me.
"It's okay love," Mom says.
"Are you ready, Gracie?" The nurse asks over a microphone.
"Yeah,"
"Okay we're gonna send you in, it's important that you lie as still as possible," The machine starts to move and make loud mechanical noises, the nurse tells me to do all these different things with my breathing. It's getting harder and harder to stay still but after about twenty minutes it's finally all over. As I sit up, I feel dizzy and nauseous, but after a glass of water, I feel a little better.
"You alright, Gracie?" Mom rubs my back, I nod. I feel like if I open my mouth to talk, vomit would just come out. The nurses transfer me back onto my bed and take me back to my room.
"Can I see the others?" I ask mom, "I don't wanna sit here on dwell on things until the results come through,"
"Sure, love, I'll text Mama now," She pulls out her phone and before I know it, my brothers and sisters are all coming in.
"Callie, Brandon, you came back!" They're holding balloons and stuffed animals.
"Of course we did," Callie hands me a huge teddy bear and hugs me.
"We came as soon as we heard," Brandon ties the balloons to my bed and comes and puts his arm around me, "How do you feel?" I hug him.
"Better, now you're all here," I hug my other siblings.
"How was the scan?" Mama asks.
"It was okay, a little scary but all I had to do was lie there," She hands me my water.
"They said they'll get the results to us as soon as they can," Mom says.
"Let's not talk about that, Brandon, how's USC?"
My family and I chat for hours, Brandon tells me all about his new girlfriend and all of his classes, and Callie tells me all about her course at USCD, she's working towards becoming a lawyer so she can help other kids in the foster system. It's nice to catch up with
them don't get me wrong, but I can't stop thinking about the results of the scan. If they find anything abnormal then I'll have to get the biopsy. Which means surgery, which means more time in the hospital. All I want to do is go home, get better and go back to school. I miss Taylor, but I don't want her to see me like this, weak. I'm supposed to be strong now, after everything that happened last year, you'd think that the world would give me some good news.
"Am I interrupting?" Dr Simons knocks on the door; the room falls silent.
"Kids, why don't you go get us some coffee," Mama hands Callie a ten-dollar bill and they awkwardly shuffle past the doctor, giving me sympathetic smiles as they leave.
Dr Simons sits on the end of my bed and opens her tablet, "I won't beat around the bush," I take my mothers hands, "We found some small lesions, or masses in your chest and upper abdomen," She shows us the screen, it's hard to see what she's talking about because I have no idea what a healthy CT scan should look like, but she points out at least a dozen white spots.
"Is that bad?" Mama asks.
"It's good that we've caught them now, they're not too big, it depends on what we find in the biopsy," She closes her tablet and puts a hand on my leg, "It's nothing to worry about yet," She smiles.
"When can we get the biopsy done? And how long until we get the results for that?" Mom asks, she's just as nervous as I am, if not more, "And what will happen after?"
"I've booked the OR for tomorrow at 8:00 am, after we sent the biopsy to the pathologist it usually takes about two weeks for the results to come back, depending on what we find I'll set up a meeting with some specialists and we'll create a treatment plan,"
"So, this could be something really bad?" I ask her.
"It could be, but there's still a very good chance that this is something easily treatable, I don't want any of you to worry unless there's something to worry about," I look to my moms, they don't know what to say, they're terrified.
"It's okay," I speak up, "Whatever it is, we'll deal with it, like you said," I squeeze their hands, "Right?"
"Of course we will," Mom puts her arms around both of us.
"Right," Mama hugs us back.
"If you have any further questions, just have one of the nurses page me, I'll be by tomorrow morning to prep you for surgery," She smiles again and leaves.
I have no choice, I have to be strong, if not for me then for my moms, and my brothers and sisters. If I can't handle this then I know it'll break them. So, I have to be the voice of reason. For my family.