Frozen Mud

Chapter 1 - Time

"Mr Chapman, how are you doing ?" Said Doctor Anderson. She was very tall for a lady, about 6"3, barely taller then myself. I hated the sight of her, nothing personal, but when I got into her office, sat down at her desk, and readied myself to talk to her, it meant that she had bad news.

I remember the first time I saw her, on my doctor Fleur's orders. It must have been about three weeks ago. She'd been worried that I hadn't had that chest X-ray, but hey, I was 18 and bold. How could I possibly have anything wrong with me right ? Well turns out, there was something. The morning I went to see Fleur, I had woken up to a chest pain like no other. Coughing, spluttering, I headed to my girlfriends bathroom. I'd been staying there for a while. It was small, but snug, and it was warmer than my flat and closer to uni. After about half an hours session of near vomiting, she came up behind me, and whispered, "You really need to have those X-rays Dom." 

Deep down I knew that I did, this had been going on since before Christmas, and it was now march. It started out being an occasional cough, then chest pains, I wrote it off as being due to sports or something, but for a few days I'd woken up to pain, and lack of breath. So, I'd rung my parents to take me to the doctors, knowing full well that I'd get ripped to shreds by my mother and the doctor for not having an X-ray. She dismissed my fearsc had a listen to my lungs, then, as she got a cigarette out, handed me an envelope, and said to take it straight to A&E. Mean cow. Just because I'm coughing doesn't mean I don't want to smoke. So my parents left the doctors, and took me to A&E. There, they prodded me, listened to my chest, had me pee in a bottle, and then left me in a corridor for twelve hours. They told me that if I stood up I might die. I'd been 18 for 7 months. The screaming, and clutter just made me worry more. Why am I here ? What's happening ?

Over the next week I got it all. The first four days were still limited to my bed. Which people shoved about a lot. I was lucky at least, in the fact that I had Hwamin and my parents by my side. Hwamin wouldn't leave, she'd walk next to my bed when the nurses would push it about. Wait with me in corridors, before I'd have cat scans, and needles stuck in my back. I could see her constant supply of tissues, even caught her crying once, which she dismissed smiling. She was beautiful. Mum and Dad were next in line. They took the hour long road to the hospital and back from the countryside every day to see me. We weren't well off, so it was a strain for them, but without them I wouldn't have survived. They always got me care packages, food, chocolates books to read, anything I wanted they would get, and trust me, I needed something to keep me alive.

After the fours days of not standing up, i was put in quarantine. Everyone around me wore masks. Like I was dirty. Insignificant. Yes, now I could stand up, but I couldn't leave the room. There was no shower in my room, but at least I could go to a normal toilet after four days of peeing in a bottle. That's where I met Doctor Anderson. She would always look at me with sorrow and a bit of disappointment, like when a child eats all the sweets, you know you can't really help him, and it's not his fault, you empathise, but then again you have to do your job. That was her. She told me she would help. The only good thing she did was release me from hospital, after finding out not what was wrong with me, but that I was not contagious. Thanks bitch.

"I'm great doc, you ?" I answered. I don't know why everyone asks me that all the time. 

"I'm good thank you. Mr Chapman, do you know why you're here ?" She asked, in a condescending sort of way. She did have a doctors degree after all. Besides, how could I not know what I'm here for. That's all I've been thinking about for the past month. She'd told me that she'd know what was wrong by now. She told me she'd be able to sort it out. So yes I did know.

"Yes doc, it's a sort of checkup to explain what's up with me, right ?" Bloody hell, that almost sounded revised, like this sentence had been planned for weeks on end. In all fairness, it had been.

"Right you are Mr Chapman. So..." she started. 

A lot of rambling went on, about how hard they worked to find out what was up, and how hard it was. Even when they're saving your life, they want you to know that you're a pain, ironic really. She talked about their initial suspicions, I caught words like "pneumonia" and "bronchitis", but she dismissed those. However, then her brow tightened, and she suddenly looked at her notes. The pause was abrupt, half a sentence in. I'd zoned out by now, what with the medical speak and whatnot, so the pause brought me back.

"Yes doc ?" I asked shyly.

"Mister Chapman, we regret to inform you that we don't know what's wrong with you at this time, but we have narrowed it down to a few candidates."

Brace yourself Dom, this is it.

"It might be tuberculosis, but we think that's unlikely."

I will admit I let out a gasp with that one. 

"What we think is more likely..."

"Yes ?"

"We think you might have lung cancer Mr Chapman."

Boom. At that moment in time, everything stopped. The sun wasn't so bright, the walls weren't so white, and nothing was as it seems. Hi, my name's Dom, I'm 18 and I have cancer.