Hey everyone! Thanks so much for the great feedback in the last chapter. I appreciate you all so much. Keep it up! A special thanks to Sincerelycgm who is amazing! You should all read her story "Over My Head" because it's awesome and deserves a billion hits. Thanks so much to all of you! Enjoy chapter 8!
Diclaimer: I do not own degrassi
Cam's POV
The next morning, I wake up in the uncomfortable hospital chair to the light streaming in through the window. I move my head from side to side cracking my neck before getting up from the chair. I notice that Maya is no longer in the room, and Lexi is awake watching cartoons on TV.
I reach for my phone in my pocket and see that I have 15 unread messages and 5 missed calls. The messages are mostly from my teammates asking in different variations if Lexi is alright. I left practice early in a panic after the call from Maya, and they are probably just worried. The calls are from my mom and my mother in-law. I am not really sure why they were calling, but I was way too preoccupied to talk to anyone.
"Hey Munchy. Where'd mommy go?" I ask Lexi curiously after sticking my phone back in my pocket. Instead of replying she points to the door not diverting her eyes from the screen.
I walk to the door, and peek my head out. Looking from left to right, I see Maya standing talking to a doctor, and walk out of the room and stand next to her.
"Hey" I mention standing next to Maya. "What's going on?"
"Oh Mr. Saunders, its good you're here." The grey haired man says with a serious tone. "My name is Doctor Steele, and we have some bad news regarding your daughter." He adds solemnly.
"I'm afraid that our suspicions were correct. Alexis has acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia." He mentions with a wrinkly frown, and Maya reaches for my hand. I grab her hand and she squeezes mine tightly.
"The good news is she has a very good shot at beating this. We have one of the best cancer treatment centers in the country. We can start treatment as early as tomorrow, and we are hoping that she will be in remission after just a few cycles of chemotherapy." The Doctor says offering a sympathetic smile.
I glance over at Maya who is fidgeting nervously and then back at the doctor.
"Over 90% of children under the age of 10 who are diagnosed with Leukemia recover and lead next to normal lives." He adds patting my shoulder. Maya gives a sigh of relief obviously feeling some comfort with those odds, but I on the other hand still feel nervous.
"Rachel, could you come over here." He calls a woman wearing Scooby doo scrubs over. "We are moving Alexis Saunders to the Children's Cancer Ward. Would you please get an aid to bring them up to the fifth floor?" The Doctor says before walking away.
"Okay. I'll be back momentarily." The woman says to us before walking to a desk and picking up the telephone.
I feel a lump n the back of my throat growing as I hold back my anxiousness. I look at Maya, and she wraps her arms around my torso. I wrap my arms around her in response, and I stand there in shock holding onto Maya.
The woman comes back a few minutes later with a young, red haired, man who has a wheel chair.
"Nurses Aid Jackson will take you upstairs now." The woman says pointing to the man. He smiles kindly at us before Maya leads him in the room to get Lexi.
When we get to the Children's cancer ward we are greeted by a woman behind a desk who leads us to another room.
"Mommy, when can we go home?" Lexi asks curiously as she is wheeled into a room with bright blue walls. "Not for a while baby" Maya tells her with a frown.
"How come? I'm not bleeding no more." She says pouting, and it occurs to me that Lexi has no clue what is going on at all. I honestly don't even know how to go about telling a four year old that she has a very serious illness. Are we even supposed to tell her?
Maya gives me a questioning look that tells me she doesn't know what we are supposed to do either. The woman wheeling Lexi in must be able to read minds because when she was walking out of the room she told us "Let me go get you some information packets as well as some pamphlets for dealing with this sort of thing."
She came back seconds later with a bunch of papers, and handed them to me. "Thank you." Maya says sincerely.
"No problem at all, and if you have any questions at all feel free to ask. If you would like, I could even set you up to talk with the parents of another patient." She says sweetly trying to make this easier if at all possible.
"Thank you for all of your help." I add before she walks back out giving us a compassionate smile.
I glance at the papers for a moment before feeling too overwhelmed and handing them to Maya. She sits in a chair reading over the papers, and my phone buzzes. It is my mother calling again, and this time I decide to answer.
"Hello" I say into the phone quickly.
"Hey Cam, I just was calling to see how everything was going, and to tell you that Mickey decided to join the ice hounds." She says happily.
I swallow the lump in my throat before speaking. "Okay…" I say totally having forgotten about Mickey possibly coming to live with us this year.
"Is everything alright, Cam? You sound strange." She asks in a concerned voice. I walk out of the room so Lexi doesn't hear what I am saying, and continue speaking to my mom.
"No mom. We are at the hospital with Lexi. She was diagnosed with Leukemia this morning." I add in an upset tone.
There is silence on the other end of the phone, and I wonder if the phone disconnected. "Mom?" I ask to see if she is still there.
"Are you sure?" she asks with a serious tone. I reply with a quiet "yes", and she continues.
"I told you not to marry that girl. She has always been a distraction, and look where you are now. You are probably thinking of giving up your hockey career that we have worked your whole life on to spend time with her and Lexi. I bet you are regretting your choice to get married so early now!" my mom says into the phone irritated.
With every word my mom says I get angrier with her. She is seriously berating me about getting married at a time like this.
"You're ridiculous!" I say rudely. "I love Maya and I love Lexi. I hadn't thought about hockey yet, but if I do choose to sit out for a season that is none of your business. I will never regret marrying Maya, because she and Lexi mean the world to me. Now I'm going to get off the phone with you before you say something that makes me hate you." Flip out at her hanging up the phone when I'm done.
I walk back into the room, and Maya looks at me with wide eyes. "What happened?" she asks concerned.
"Nothing" I say sitting in a chair. "Well obviously something happened. You were screaming at her." She adds getting up from her seat, and putting the pamphlets on a roll away table.
"I don't want to talk about it." I mention frowning. "Daddy, are you still mad at me?" Lexi asks from the hospital bed sadly.
My heart hurts at the fact she thought I was ever mad at her. "I wasn't mad at you, Munchy." I comment switching seats over to the foot of the hospital bed. "I just wasn't feeling too good last week. I'm sorry if you thought I was mad." I add looking at my sick little girl.
"How come you're mad now?" she asks curiously. "Remember how I told you that Grammy is my mom?" I question trying to find a way to explain the situation mildly.
"Mhm!" she nods her head with a smile.
"You know how sometimes Mommy and Daddy yell at you when you're bad, and you get mad at us?" I continue, and she keeps nodding her head.
"You see, Grammy was just yelling at me on the phone. That's why I was mad. I'm not mad at you, Munchy I promise."
"Daddy, were you bein bad?" she asks laughing.
"Grammy thinks so, but I don't… I love you Munchkin!" I add grinning at her adorable laugh. She inherited that from Maya along with her blue eyes. "I love you too Daddy!" she says crawling across the bed and hugging me.
There is a knock on the door frame, and I turn around from hugging Lexi to see a man around the age of thirty with a smile on his face.
"Hello. I'm Doctor Pierce, and I am here to talk with you about treatment options and what not." He declares casually walking into the room.
"Okay… first things first… Hi… What's your name?" he asks holding his hand out for Lexi to shake.
She grabs his hand, and answers "Lexi!" happily.
"So Lexi, did your parents tell you why you're here?" he asks her curiously, and she shakes her head.
"Okay, you're here because you are really sick. You see, Lexi your body is made up of a bunch of cells, and you have this thing called leukemia where your body starts making the cells in funny shapes. We have to fix it with medicine or it could hurt a lot, and your nose could bleed again." He says kindly putting the illness into terms that she might be able to comprehend loosely.
"Mister Doctor, it's okay. I'm all better. I'm not sick." She tells him smiling widely.
"Well, it's good that you are feeling better, but we still need you to take the medicine." He adds nodding his head. This guy is a lot better with kids than a lot of the other doctors in the hospital. I'm pretty sure he is the first one who actually spoke directly to her.
"Okay" she agrees sweetly. "Okay, so Mr. and Mrs. Saunders, we have a few options for her induction treatment rounds. We normally do an I V for kids at her age with her type of cancer. It's quicker to go into the system." I nod, and he continues.
"The induction is usually quite intense, and will be a lot for her little body to handle. We will give her drugs to counter act the side effects, but she will most likely have some trouble eating for a few days afterwards as well as feel very weak. Her white blood cell counts will be lower than they are now, and that will cause her to be very vulnerable to infection. We are going to keep her here for four or five days, but when she goes home you have to be very careful. She cannot be exposed to other illness. Any questions?" he inquires looking first at me and then over to Maya.
"Is she going to lose her hair?" Maya asks sadly, and Doctor Pierce nods in response.
"I don't wanna lose my hair!" Lexi cries holding her shoulder length brown hair to her head.
Doctor Pierce gives her a sympathetic look, and then he looks at me. "I just put two and two together. You are Campbell Saunders from the Maple Leafs right?" he asks a little star struck.
"Yeah" I respond with a nod feeling awkward. "I'm sorry. I'm a big fan of yours. Anyway, I am thinking we will go with the I V?"
"Yeah" Maya replies. "And, there are tons of kids around here, and lots of parents dealing with the same thing you are dealing with. Feel free to walk around. We become a family in this part of the hospital." He says before walking out of the room.
"Mommy, I don't wanna lose my hair!" Lexi cries squirming off of my lap and onto the floor where she runs to Maya.
"I know honey, but sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do." Maya says picking her up, and rubbing her back comfortingly.
Maya goes home to shower and change around 1, and I walk around the floor with Lexi. Doctor Pierce was right. There are a lot of families here. I bring Lexi to one of the communal areas in the wing, and there are a few little kids playing candy land while a girl around the age of 14 sat around moping. For each of the children there was a parent watching them play, and as Lexi stands with me watching the three bald children playing candy land one of the parent's walks over to me.
"Hello, you must be new here?" the bearded man says holding out a hand for me to shake.
"Yeah, how did you know?" I inquire confused still holding Lexi's hand with my left hand.
"The way you are looking at them." He replies gesturing to the kids. "It's normal for us, and it will be for you soon enough." He says biting his lip.
"I'm Jim, by the way" he says looking back at me. "Cam" I mention politely.
"I know who you are." He says pointing at his shirt which is a Maple Leafs hoodie.
"So, what does she have?" he asks gesturing to Lexi who is still holding my hand. "Leukemia" I say nervously. "When did you find out?" he asks with a frown.
"This morning"
"Rough… I'm sorry." He says to me before calling "Sabrina, come over here a minute."
The girl moping around meandered over slowly. "What dad?" she says annoyed. "Why don't you work on your attitude missy." He scolds shooting her a frown.
"Sorry… What do you need dad?" she says in a fake happy tone.
"Sabrina?" he questions harshly, and she grins up at him genuinely probably expecting that she is going to get scolded again.
I notice Jim nod toward Lexi who is now hugging my leg shyly, and the girl who I guess is named Sabrina bends down to her level in response to his nod.
"Hi, what's your name?" she asks Lexi kindly, and Lexi just continues to hide behind my leg. "Lexi, don't be shy. Say hi." I say pealing her from my leg.
"Lexi" she says quickly still standing there next to me scared.
"Hi Lexi, my name is Sabrina. Do you want to play a game with me?" she asks her kindly, and Lexi looks up at me asking if she can go. I nod and she follows the older girl to a shelf filled with puzzles and games.
Jim leads me to the couch where he was sitting, and we sit talking about our kids. It turns out his daughter has Leukemia as well. He tells me that she was diagnosed when she was 5, and then was in remission for 4 years before she had her first relapse. She went into remission again, and then had another relapse this year.
"That must be terrible." I say frowning sadly, and silently hoping that Lexi doesn't go through anything like that. "She's a trooper." He says looking at his daughter as she helps Lexi with a puzzle.
"We are waiting on a bone marrow transplant match now." He says still watching her.
"How old is she?" I ask curiously, and he replies. "She'll be 15 in December."
"I hear those are the tough years." I say nicely.
"It's not so bad. She's a good girl." He says proudly.
"Well that's good. I have a little brother whose 15. I'm not sure what we are going to do now, but we were planning on moving him in with us. It's probably not a good idea." I add looking at Lexi struggle to fit a puzzle piece in.
"She's good with kids." I laugh as Sabrina helps Lexi with the puzzle pieces.
"Yeah... I have no clue how. Her mom isn't even around anymore." He says sadly.
"I'm sorry." I say assuming that she has passed away.
"Don't be. She made the mistake when she walked out on us. She couldn't handle Sabrina being sick." He says angrily.
Talking with Jim is definitely scaring me a lot, but I know that Maya and I are in it for the long haul. We are still crazy about each other, and we love Lexi more than anything else on the planet. I hope that I never have to be in Jim's position, but I'm nearly sure I won't have to be. Even if Lexi does end up relapsing, I know that Maya will be there for her just as much as I will. I hope…