I open my eyes. I am laying on my bed, ready to start another day. I wonder where it could take me this time. I get up, or at least I try to. Once I go my head goes dizzy and I fall over onto the floor. My dad runs into my room, panting. He runs over to me and picks me up and lays me back down onto my bed.
"You okay Ash, what happened?" He asks. He fumbles with his hand anxiously.
"I don't know." I respond. "I just got up and next thing I knew I was down here. My head hurts. Really badly."
"Okay. I'll call for an ambulance to come and get you and bring you to the doctor."
"But-"
"No." he cuts in. "You are not fine Ash. You are going weather you like it or not."
"Fine." I say giving up. Once dad has his mind set, it stays set.
A few minutes later the ambulance arrives and rushes into the house. They pick me up slowly and with caution. Then they load me in to the ambulance. I feel alone in the ambulance. For the first time I am riding in one alone. Dad follows in the car, mom used to ride with me.
But once we arrive at the hospital they do some tests and a CAT scan.
Then they bring us into a normal room and sit my dad and I both down.
"Everything looks pretty good." the doctor says. "All except for a small speck of new cancer."
No. I think. This can't be happening. Not more cancer, I was just starting to get better.
"The cancer is beginning to make it's way to your brain Alisha."
"No" this time I don't think it, I yell it. "No, this can't be happening."
"I'm so sorry. There is nothing else we can do for you but hope."
I begin to cry and my dad hugs me. "It's okay Alisha, we'll get through this together" he said, but I could tell in his voice, he was scared too.
I can't imagine what he is thinking about now. He found me and fought for me and helped me. then as soon as he thought that we would be together forever, he finds out that he will be the one to bury his own child. When it should be the other way around.
He found me.
Now he is losing me.
"But there is one thing that we could do to help you." the doctor says and dad and I both look up with tears and hope in our eyes. "Chemo. It's a treatment that uses chemical substances to heal you. Or at least try to heal you."
"What do you think Ash? It is one hundred percent your choice."
I think. If I do it and it doesn't work then what do I have to lose. If I try it and it does work, then I won't ever look or feel the same. But I want to live, I don't want to die anymore. Mom would want me to do it, she would want me to live to the fullest. She wouldn't want me to die just because some disease killed me. SHe would want me to live, and so
"Yes." I say, "I'll do it."
