Just to let you all know, I'm shunning college work that desperately needs doing just to post this. No matter how much I tell myself to get to work and concentrate, I can't knowing this chapter is ready to go. So, here I am, at percisely 6.36pm, sitting in college trying to force myself to do some work while phoning home every ten minutes to make sure my children aren't starving (their dad...not so good with cooking!) and writing on fanfiction when I should be avoiding it like the plague! So, I hope you enjoy the sacrifice of both time with my children and my education, just to bring you the next chapter of The Missing Years :)
((EDIT - This chapter was re-posted to correct a mistake pointed out to by DieHardBrendan))
December 18th, 2000
'Carol, could you start an IV for me?'
Carol turned in the direction the voice came from to find third year resident Anais Jenson walking up behind her, carrying at least ten charts and looking flustered.
'No problem Anais, let me just finish here. Where's the patient?' Carol replied, continuing to dress a young boy's leg wound.
'Thanks Carol, you're a life saver. She's in three, her name is Chloe Richards,' Anais said while passing over the relevant chart.
Carol tucked it under her arm and kept working. The little boy looked up, seemingly interested.
'Are you like the best nurse here?' he asked. He was only seven years old but unbelievably smart and had asked constant questions the whole time Carol had sat with him. Inquisitive and intelligent beyond his years, little Jacob Ryan had sustain his injury, a deep gash to his shin, while playing sports at school. Apparently, while he was as smart as many twelve year olds, sports was not his forte.
'Why do you ask that?' Carol asked, fixing the dressing into place.
Jacob shrugged. 'Well, all the doctors keep asking you to do things for them. That must mean you're better than them,' he reasoned.
Carol smiled. As clever as he was, he was still just an innocent seven year old.
'Well, don't tell the doctors this, but between you and me, I'm way better than them. Us nurses are the real brains of this hospital,' Carol said, lowering her voice as if she was taking Jacob into her confidence.
Jacob smiled and said, 'I won't tell anyone. It can be our little secret.'
Carol smiled back and ruffled his hair. 'Now you take care while in gym class. Stick with the classroom, okay?' she said.
Jacob nodded in agreement, looking quite serious. Carol said her goodbyes and went in search of Chloe Richards.
When she first entered Exam Room Three, she found it empty. She was about to turn and leave when the door opened and a girl, no more than eighteen, entered. She looked exhausted, with large purple bags under her eyes. Her blonde hair hung limp over her shoulders and she was extremely thin and pale.
'Chloe?' Carol asked and the girl nodded.
'Sorry, I just went to the bathroom,' she explained as she lowered herself onto her gurney again.
'No problem. I'm Nurse Hathaway, I'm here to start an IV,' Carol explained.
Chloe rolled her eyes. 'Here we go again. Alright, let's get it over with,' she said with a dramatic sigh.
'Been through this before, huh?' Carol asked as she pulled up a stool beside the gurney.
'Just like a million times in the last eight months. My body is too weak to fight off infection. This is the second time I've had pneumonia,' Chloe explained.
For the first time, Carol actually glanced down at Chloe's chart to see what was wrong with her and her face fell when she saw the diagnosis. Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
Chloe followed Carol's gaze and began telling her story without any prompting.
'I was diagnosed with AML in May. I had been feeling really tired for weeks beforehand and kept finding really unusual bruises but having no idea how I got them. I didn't think it was that serious and I was preparing to sit my SATs so I didn't say anything to my parents. They passed off my fatigue as studying too hard for my exams. Then I passed out in the middle of my last exam and was rushed to hospital where doctors told me and my parents that my kidneys had failed and I would have to be placed on the transplant list and go on dialysis until they found me a kidney. So my parents asked what could have caused kidney failure in a healthy seventeen year old, the doctors ran some tests and that's when they discovered the leukemia. It's a really unusual type of AML called M5 and it causes the overproduction of certain white blood cells, which caused a blood clot, which caused the kidney failure. So now not only have I to have a kidney transplant but also have a bone marrow transplant and I'm starting my third round of chemo next week.'
Throughout Chloe's explanation, Carol had followed her story through every hospital admission and treatment marked on her chart. It wasn't unusual for Carol to come across cancer patients in her job. She worked in an ER. But this story shocked her. Chloe was only seventeen years old. She seemed like a bright young girl, had sat her SAT's, probably planning on going to college. It just seemed so unfair and yet, Chloe seemed so at peace with her diagnosis, like it was just a common cold that would eventually go away. But Leukemia would not just go away.
'Are there no family members eligible for the transplant?' she asked, eventually, realising as she looked over Chloe's chart that the bone marrow transplant was needed as soon as possible.
Chloe's eyes dropped to her lap. 'There's my sister, but nobody knows where she is. She left town over eight years ago, I barely even remember her. My parents are trying to track her down but I think we have more chance of me matching with a stranger than us actually finding Melissa.'
Sympathy welled up inside Carol as she watched Chloe watch her knees. She didn't know why this particular case was affecting her the way it was, but out of nowhere, she felt a burning need to do everything she could so Chloe would be okay.
Without another word to each other, Carol started Chloe's IV. The teenager looked exhausted and as Carol worked, she rested her head back against the pillow and shut he eyes. Just as Carol snapped off her latex gloves and stood, Chloe opened her eyes and looked straight at Carol, finding a connection and holding onto it.
'How long can I last without the transplant?' Chloe asked, bluntly.
'Well, so long as you keep on having dialysis, indefinitely,' Carol told her.
Chloe shook her head. 'I mean the bone marrow transplant. How long can I wait for Melissa?'
Carol sighed. She knew that if they didn't find a match soon, the rest of Chloe's organs would eventually begin to fail. She could withstand the kidney failure as long as she continued on dialysis, but if anything else shut down, she would be left with very few options.
Carol sat back down on the stool next to Chloe. 'I know that right now you feel like hope slipping away, that there's no light at the end of the tunnel, but eventually, a match will be found. And it might be hard but the best thing you can do is exactly what you're doing, staying strong and believe that it will happen for you...because I do.'
Chloe was silent for a long minute before she finally nodded, as though to herself, then smiled and looked up at Carol. 'Thanks Nurse Hathaway.'
Carol smiled and laid a hand upon Chloe's head. 'Call me Carol,' she said.
Two Weeks Later
'Vogue, Marie Claire and Elle. That's all they had,' Carol said upon entering Chloe's room.
Chloe was lying in bed watching old re-runs of "The Fresh Prince". She looked over to Carol, smiled and switch off the TV.
'Hey! Nobody turns off Will Smith,' Carol admonished and Chloe laughed.
'This is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned outside down and I'd to take a minute, just sit right there. I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air,' Chloe sang, sounding very much like a young Will Smith as she did. Then she giggled. 'I don't know the rest,' she admitted.
Carol smiled. 'In west Philadelphia, born and raise. On the playground is where I spent most of my days-'
'Alright, I get it! You like Will Smith. Now can I have my magazines?' Chloe asked, laughing at Carol's attempt to finish the song.
Carol laughed too. 'Suppose,' she said, dumping the magazine down next to her.
'You're a star. I don't think I could survive without reading this month's issue of Vogue,' Chloe said, already flipping toward it's pages.
Over the last two weeks, Carol had visited Chloe every day. They chatted about boys and colleges, Carol told her all about Doug and the twins and work as an ER nurse. They talked about places they wanted to visit, music they liked and covered all the 90's classic kids TV shows like Saved by the Bell, Hangtime, Sweet Valley High and of course, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Chloe thought Carol crush on Will Smith was very comical, although Carol could not understand Chloe's crush on Justin Timberlake at all.
Carol also discovered that Chloe was an avid fashion follower and though she hadn't yet had the chance to attend college, she had been guaranteed a place in the Chicago AI for when she was well enough to go. Chloe had designed her own Homecoming dress, though she never got to wear it as she was having chemo at the time. She also made a wedding gown for her cousin and a flower girl dress to match. Chloe had had her mom bring in her portfolio which had secured her place at the AI and Carol had been amazed by the drawings, sketches and pictures of Chloe's wonderful designs.
After becoming so close to Chloe over the last couple of weeks, Carol was desperately awaiting the news of a match for both the bone marrow and kidney transplants as much as the girl's parents were. She had checked the UNOS list countless times and still there was no match for either transplant.
After sitting with Chloe for almost thirty minutes, Carol decided it was time to get back to the ER. She said her goodbyes, promised to be back tomorrow and left.
As she waited for the elevators, however, Carol happened to spot a young woman sitting opposite Chloe's room. She held her head in her hands and her shoulders visible shook as she cried. Concerned, Carol walked away from the elevators and stopped beside the young woman.
'Are you okay?' she asked softly.
The woman raised her head, her expression full of surprised at being directly addressed, and wiped her eyes. Slowly, she nodded her head.
Carol lowered herself onto the chair beside the woman. 'You don't look okay. Is there anything I could do to help?' she offered.
The woman hesitated for another few seconds, then shook her head and before Carol could speak again, she dissolved into tears, shaking as sobs wracked through her body and nothing Carol said or did would calm her. After a few seconds, the woman breath was coming in fast and short gasps and Carol recognised the symptoms of a panic attack.
Eventually, Carol asked a passing nurse to help get her down stairs to the ER. She set her up in one of the exam rooms, started an IV and pushed some valium. She woman's gasping and sobbing eased and after a few minutes, the woman was out like a light. Confused to say the least, Carol left the exam room to write the woman up as a patient and start a chart. She knew she'd get crap for pushing meds without a doctor's orders but she'd deal with that later.
It was about forty minutes later when a med student by the name of Adam Bennett came to tell Carol the woman was awake.
When Carol entered the exam room, the woman was sitting up in the bed, looking confused and shaken, gazing at the IV as if wondering how it and she had gotten there.
'Hi, I'm Nurse Hathaway,' Carol said, taking a seat next to the gurney.
'How did I get here?' the woman asked, looking about the room, still confused.
'I met you up outside the PICU. You had a panic attack so I took you down here to treat you. How are you feeling?'
The woman shook her head as if trying to clear it and remember what had happen. 'Fine.'
'Can you tell me your name?' Carol asked.
There was a few seconds silence as the woman hesitated, then she said, 'Mel Stewart.'
'What's Mel short for?' Carol asked, as has began filling in the name on the woman's chart.
'Melanie' the woman said quickly, causing Carol to look up. Something in the way the woman had said Melanie had set off warning bells for Carol. Lowering the chart, Carol looked Mel straight in the eye, trying to convey that she was here to help and asked, 'Why were you outside the PICU? Were you visiting someone?'
Mel hesitated, opened and closed her mouth several times, then chose not to speak at all.
Carol had a hunch of exactly who this woman might be. She was trying not to get her hopes up and had to force herself to keep her steady as she spoke.
'Were you here to visit Chloe?' Carol asked, her voice as quiet and gentle as she could make it.
Mel's eyes flew open and she looked stricken that Carol had guessed her true identity so easily.
'Mel's not short for Melanie, is it?' Carol asked, her voice still gentle.
Tears welled up in Mel's eyes as she shook her head. 'How did you know I was Chloe's sister?'
Carol smiled slightly. She laid a gentle hand to Mel's arm and said, 'When you've been a nurse as long as I have, you start to understand the patients. Why didn't you go in to see her? Your parents have been looking for you for months.'
Melissa wiped away her tears. 'I've been moving around a lot. My husband's job...you know. I haven't seen Chloe since she was eight years old. Our mom kicked me out when she found out I was pregnant. I got a message about five months ago from an old phone number saying Chloe was really sick and I had to come back to Seattle. I was so angry that mom could just phone up out of the blue and demand I come home after so many years of ignoring my existence. So I just ignored it. Then my dad managed to find a number for Kris, my husband, through work. He said that Chloe was getting worse and that I had to come and he'd explain everything then. It scared me, the way he was talking, like Chloe was actually on her death bed. So I came. But when I saw her through the window today and saw for myself how sick she was...I'm such a horrible sister. Chloe needed me and I just ignored her,' Melissa sobbed.
Carol tightened her grip on Melissa's arm, trying to comfort her. The awful truth was dawning on her. Melissa didn't know what was wrong with Chloe.
And sure enough, once her sobs were under control, Melissa looked up at Carol and asked, 'What's wrong with her?'
Carol took a deep steady breath and began.