His last thought

17| surgery

The next day, I wake up before anyone in my house and get ready for school. I start to drive down to Ashley's and see her standing by her front window when I pull into her driveway.

"Hey." Ashley says as she gets into the front seat. "Where's Caleb?"

"Back at the hospital; He's going to be there for a few days. Going through chemo 24/7 while he's there."

"What do you thinks going to happen?"

"I'm not going to say anything. But I'm dropping you off at school then going to see him." I tell her.

"No."

"What?"

"I said no."

"What do you mean no?" I ask her.

"I mean I'm going to go with you. To apologize for being an asshole to him before." She says and smiles.

When we get to the hospital, she walks in behind me as I walk up to the front desk.

"Morgan." I hear someone say sternly from behind me. I turn around and see my doctor.

"Dr. Lynn."

"You can't see Caleb." Dr. Lynn tells me.

"Why not?"

"He got out of an EEG an hour or so ago. He's asleep."

"Can you show me his MRI and EEG results?" I ask her. "Please. I know what I'd be looking at and I just want to know where he's at with all this." I tell her. "Please."

She sighs and waves me over to her as she walks down to an x-ray room. I tell Ashley id be right back as I walk into the room.

"Look at these." Dr. Lynn tells me and points to three rows of thee brain x-rays. "These are from when Caleb first came into town, these are from yesterday and those are from today." She says as she points to the rows.

The tumor in the second row was bigger than in the first row, and the tumor in the third row was bigger than all of them.

"How did it start growing so fast? Can't you try to get some of it out?" I ask her. My heart rate starts to pick up quicker and quicker.

"Yes, we're going to try. We won't be able to get it all out though."

"Does Caleb know?"

"We're going to tell him when he wakes up and try to get the surgery started as soon as we can. His moms on her way." Dr. Lynn says and walks out. I follow behind her and see Ashley sitting waiting for me by the door.

"What happened?"

"Surgery." I say and sit next to her. "I don't know how to feel."

My phone starts ringing, and I see that's Corey calling me. I walk over to an empty corner to pick it up.

"Hm?"

"Where are you?" He asks me. I don't answer and he asks again.

"I'm just at the hospital." I tell him.

"Why?"

"Don't worry about it. I'm okay, just here to see Caleb."

"Is he okay?"

I hear the front door slam shut and Kate comes running in.

"I'll call you back later." I say and hang up. I run up to Kate and stop her in the middle of the hall.

"Morgan, why are you here?" She asks me.

"Please don't tell my mom, I came here to talk to Caleb, but he's about to go into surgery."

"I know." Kate says and grabs my hand. "Your mom won't care. She's on her way."

I just keep quiet and follow Kate into Calebs room. Ashley stays outside the door so I wave her in, but she doesn't move.

"Come in, Ash." I tell her.

"No, I'm fine." She says so I just shrug it off and walk into his room.

"We're worried about the mass stopping any sort of blood flow throughout the other parts of his brain." Dr. Lynn says as she points to the most recent x ray of Calebs brain. "We're going to try to remove as much of the tumor as possible so it won't stop the blood. We won't be able to get more than a third out."

"What does that mean with chemo in the long run?' Kate asks.

"We're going to try to get through the full round as fast as we can."

"And school?" I ask her.

"Some days. We're thinking about breaking the treatment into three segments. The segments will be a full day or two, maybe something around 15 bags." Dr. Lynn says.

"15?" I ask as there was a knock on the doorframe. My mom walks in and her face drops at the sight of Caleb.

"Are you okay with all of that?" Dr. Lynn asks Kate. She nods and walks out of the room with my mom and the doctor. It was just me left in the room, so I sit in a chair beside Calebs bed. His eyes slowly flicker open, and when he looks at me, he smiles.

"Hey, Morgan. Chemo's kicking my ass recently." He says and chuckles. "That nap was amazing though."

"Well, you're about to take another one. We're going to try to remove some of the tumor; It will keep your blood flow regular and help the chemo work a little faster." Dr. Lynn tells him as she walks in with our moms.

They take him out of the room in a wheelchair and me and the other three girls wait in the living room. I think I ended up falling asleep, because Paige ends up waking us all up.

"The surgery didn't go as planned. There were no complications, but we were able to clear most of the blood vein. Not as much as intended, but it did help." Paige tells us all.

"What does that mean?" I ask her.

"We're going to go through the chemo as fast as we can. We think it will help the tumor shrink, then we will attempt to remove it again."

"You think?" Kate asks her.

"They don't want to promise anything." I tell Kate.

"Is Caleb in his room?" Ashley asks.

Paige nods. "But he's still under anesthetics."

"I got spicy Cheetos for him out of the vending machines. You loved them when you were doing chemo." Ashley tells us and hands the bag to me.

"You give them to him. Hell appreciate it."