The Summer of Carrie: A Love Story

Four years ago.

"Time does not heal all wounds; it just slowly becomes bearable," a wise man once told me. Those were the last words he said to me before I found out that he succumbed to leukemia.

Since then, I thought of him every time I sat down at those chairs during my chemotherapy as I watch the liquid make it through my veins. I don't personally know him, but I hope that he's in a better place and no longer in pain.

Chapter 1

Freezing air blew out from the AC. So cold that you'd feel goose pimples prickle on your skin. Right across the blasting AC was an operating table.

The operating table felt like a block of ice against my naked body, bright lights over my head blinded my eyes, my body: paralyzed.

I saw gray colored aluminum drawers and a boxy refrigerator looking but instead of food, they preserve dead bodies. I am not in an operating room; this is a morgue. Screamed my mind. There's this shadow of a person standing over me. I couldn't make out his or her face. He wore a white coat; I assumed this person is a medical examiner with a cold scalpel pressed on my skin making deep lacerations all throughout my body.

It stung like hell, I thought I have high pain tolerance but not with those cuts. I've always wished for an easy and painless death, clearly that fell on deaf ears. Blood gushed from my open wounds, I screamed but a whimper escaped my mouth. There's goes my last ditched effort. I guess this is the end.

I swiveled my neck to the right and saw my heart on a scale. My kidneys, my liver, and my stomach were on a disc. What's going on? Am I dead? My inner voice panicked.

I opened my eyes by the sound of my alarm. Every now and then I get those kinds of nightmares. I have been up since three in the morning, except I decided to keep laying on my bed hoping to fall back to sleep, but I never do.

In the past few years, I had been in and out of the hospital from one experimental treatment to another, with the hope that one of them would cure my cancer. Endless tests, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and tons of medications washed down my throat and through my veins. All of them, insufferable.

The word exhaustion was an understatement, I wanted to die instead. Yet, what hurts the most other than being prodded and stuck with needles was seeing my family struggle.

I couldn't stand seeing my family cry because of me. Sometimes I wish someone could erase their memories, so they don't have to go through this hell.

I watched myself go from a healthy person to a stick figure. Losing my hair affected my self-confidence. My long curly jet-black hair started falling out of since my chemo started; a couple of months later, they're gone. I would weep every time I caught my reflection in the mirror. I saw someone I do not recognize; I saw a shell of my former vibrant self.

I would never want to re-live that ever again or wish it to my worst enemy. If my cancer comes back, I'm not going to put myself through those treatments again. I think...but I'll cross the bridge when I get there.

On the bright side, I have been in remission for more than a year now. My hair started to grow back. My body started to come back too, curvier than ever. My appetite came back with a vengeance. I could compare my appetite to a teenage boy, I wish I could say that to my metabolism.

So far, everything has been well, and I prayed it stays that way for a while. I plan on making the best of my second chance in life and take nothing for granted.

I stumbled out of my bed to make coffee. The calendar hanging on my fridge reminded me of my upcoming birthday. Almost 40. I muttered to myself.