The weeks after Thea had loured him out of his room had been... better for Arlo. He left the room more, ate more, smiled more. He spoke a bit more frequently, but still not a lot.
Things had actually been fun. He and Thea left the room frequently, usually exploring the hospital and the grounds. He learned the names of the other people in the cancer ward, as well as what they had. He didn't really expand on what he had, only murmuring that it was bone cancer.
The thought of what he had was... worrying. Osteosarcoma wasn't an easy cancer to deal with. No cancer was, but this was.. vicious. They were lucky to catch it where it was, since it hadn't metastasized. Normally, the first place it attacked were the lungs, and his were clean. It was only his leg affected, and now he was understanding why he wasn't to walk on it. Because it hurt like hell. His knee and the area around was swollen and red, and if he tried to walk, it came with a limp.
He was told that the cancer resided just around his knee; in the upper part of his tibia. This caused difficulty with bending his leg. He had a sub type of Osteosarcoma known as Chondroblastic Osteosarocma, meaning that the cancer cells forming were cartilage cells. They were making it difficult to bend his knee, taking up all the space there and pushing things aside, growing even with the chemo.
So they started radiation. If Arlo had been fatigued before... He thought he knew being tired. How he'd felt with simply the chemo was nothing like this. He felt like a zombie. The doctors gave him a sleep medication, and it worked, but he was still tired. Arlo resorted to drinking tons of coffee, all the time. That, or caffeinated tea.
For the first time, in the face of his fatigue, Arlo wanted to do things. He wanted to get up, to get around. So he and Thea did.
The most memorable thing happened late at night, neither being able to sleep, what with her coughing and his insomnia. So he got into his wheel chair, and with Thea's insistence, his leg was taken with them.
Arlo never thought the sweet looking, soft spoken girl could be so evil. She brought him to the middle of a deserted hallway, had him lay on the floor on his stomach. She carefully arranged his leg so it looked broken, sticking out at an odd angle and twisted the wrong way. She then shoved his chair away a bit and hid behind a door.
He laid perfectly still as footsteps rung in his ears, hardly breathing. They stopped suddenly, a gasp audibly heard. They then started again, speeding up until they were near them.
At that point, Thea jumped from her hiding place, lunging at the source of the steps, who promptly screamed and ran, the clipboard clattering to the floor. As he released his laughter, which had barely been contained, he shakily stood, quickly sitting in his wheel chair as she brought it to him, saying, "Go, go, we need to go!" Her voice shook with laughter.
He nodded, zooming off in his wheelchair as she followed him to their room. They hid out there for the rest of the night, holding their breath in the silence for fear that an angry nurse would burst into their room.
Said angry nurse never appeared. Eventually, the two fell asleep, Thea coughing.
It was like that for months after their little prank. He was happy. She seemed happy. They had fun, worked on school work. Thea had been homeschooled, and had her own curriculum. He had to catch up on his work, but was quickly working ahead. He had long hours with nothing to do, and it was one way to fill the time.
Arlo had noticed, that as the months passed, Thea got quieter. She spoke less, and when she did talk, it was almost always in a whisper. Half of the time, he had to read her lips. It was worrying, really, but with the cancer she had... He wasn't exactly sure about how it progressed, or if it was what was affecting her voice. All he knew was that it made him nervous. When he did ask her, quietly, if she was okay, she simply brushed him off, saying she was fine.
Unlike him, Thea got frequent visits from a woman he had been introduced to as Margaret. She was short and blond, a friendly smile constantly on her lips. Though Thea's mother was a bit more persistent than her daughter in getting him to talk, she was no more successful, but the two of them still got on well.
His third visit from his parents wasn't on a happy note. The doctors were worried; his cancer wasn't showing much change in response to the chemo and radiation.
They would have to do surgery. If left alone, there was a good chance that the cancer would spread to his lungs. A very good chance. But there were more problems, there always were.
There was just too much there to remove. It would involve permanently damaging his knee, it would be useless. If Arlo ever wanted to play sports again...
The word again. Amputation. He tried not to tune out as they spoke, listening as they said that it would be what was best. His parents, as usual, agreed. More of him gone. More of him fake. Would he be able to do it? It had taken him ages to learn to walk with one prosthesis without falling or knocking into everything. Months. Two prosthetics?
The doctors explained that his leg would be removed just above the knee. Arlo wanted to protest, but it would be pointless. Wasn't there another way? Apparently not. Even if he did go into remission, the cells would still be there, just... dead. Surgery would be needed, and with the size of his tumor and how deeply it was rooted into his bone, it would be nearly impossible to remove it without his leg. Too dangerous to try.
They said that his parents could come back in a week to give their final decision, and if they agreed, a final date would be set, along with all the paperwork that needed to be done.
Arlo was wheeled back to his room. For once, he wanted to talk. Just... get it out of him. At how he never had a choice. It was childish, he knew. This was what was best for him, they said. Maybe it was, but for once in his life, could he not agree to something drastic happening to him? Could he not explain his point, question what would happen, something?
However, when he got back to his room, Thea wasn't there. He figured that she was getting her radiation, since that was usually why she wasn't there. So Arlo waited.
When she didn't return by the end of the day, he began to worry. By the end of the week...
