The Things I Used To Love About You

3

Aida's POV

"He's asleep right now, so be quiet when opening his door, Aida." I nodded thanking Chris as I made my way down the winding corridors of St Thomas's oncology department before stopping at room 324. I took a deep breath before quietly turning the door handle and peaking around the door.

My brother lay asleep, an array of tubes and machines surrounding his bedside.

Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML). An aggressive and rapidly progressive form of cancer that had wilted my 9-year-old brother into nothing but a pile of skin and bones. Cancer had robbed him of the rest of his already turbulent childhood. His beautiful smile that used to reach his ears was now a painful upturn of his dry and parched lips.

The type of cancer was treatable, but we had discovered it late mostly due to our inability to escape a dangerous situation we found ourselves in, and till this day I haven't forgiven myself for the torture and suffering he has gone through as a consequence for the past three years. I tried my absolute hardest to shield him from everything I could, but it clearly wasn't enough. he didn't deserve this.

I closed the door quietly before moving to my makeshift bed in the corner of his room.

His cancer had reached an "untreatable stage" in the past few months. A stage the NHS said they would like to terminate his care and put him on palliative. However, I felt like I owed it to Jacob, to give him the best chance at life after everything he'd experienced.

I took out loans, piled up credit debt, dropped out of medical school and worked my arse off to go for private care and yet there I was three months later listening to doctor I paid almost £120,000 to tell me the same conclusion and recommend the transition to palliative care after nine extra months of strenuous treatment.

Some may have thought I was foolish and blinded by grief and selfishness at the prospect of losing my brother, but I refuse to be made to feel bad about my decision to put my all into my brother when no one else had.

My motivations had changed. He only had a few months left and I planned to make all his dreams and hopes that I could possibly make come true. I wanted to plan him a funeral worthy of a king even if I was the only one in attendance.

My mind flashed back to the evening of the day he made the decision. I held his hand tight in my hand as my head lay on the bed next to his sleeping figure as I listened to his shallow breathing raising his hand to my lips whispering against it.

"Jacob, I dread the day of your funeral when people will stand at a lectern and detail all the things they used to love about you."

Yet in our case I would be the only one in attendance speaking to your coffin as I listed all the things I used to love about you.