The Healing Blood

Chapter One

Leukemia

Definition;

any of several cancers of the bone marrow that prevent the normal manufacture of red and white blood cells and platelets, resulting in anemia, increased susceptibility to infection, and impaired blood clotting.

Cancer. Cancer.

That word kept repeating in his mind. He wanted to punch something. Hard.

But what good would that do? It would only injure himself.

After he, nineteen year old Ben Simmons, had finally got the nerve to ask the new girl, Denni Mayvor, out on a date today. Denni the most beautiful girl he has ever seen, with sun-kissed brown hair and sea green eyes.

Ben thought back to this morning at church, as almost asked her then.

He started walking toward her to ask her, but she was surrounded by her new friends.

Kimberly Pelts, Mary Acres, and Cari Karver. And he overheard their conversation.

"Okay Denni, what is it that you wanted to tell us?" Kimberly asked.

"I can't tell you here, meet me at Skier Park at three o'clock, underneath the Great Oak."

The girls agreed to meet Denni at three.

Ben was curious as to what Denni was going to tell the girls, so he planned on getting to the Great Oak, before them and climb it so he can eavesdrop on their conversation.

Two Fifty-eight rolled around.

Ben was already in the Great Oak tree, waiting for Denni and her girl gang to arrive.

Denni arrived first, right on time, Cari and Mary walked together, Kimberly arrived a few minutes later.

"Okay now that everyone is here, I can tell you. but first you might want to sit down."

"Wow this must be really serious." Mary said as they all sat down right underneath Ben's listening ears.

"Okay well you all know that I had a doctors appointment last Tuesday. Well I got the results Friday." Denni told them.

"And? don't keep us in suspense, tell us." Kimberly said.

"I have leukemia." Denni said soberly.

"What!"

"Your kidding!"

"No!"

They three girls exclaimed at once.

Ben couldn't believe his ears. He watched as Denni's eyes started to fill with tears.

"It's true." Denni said in an whispered voice, she covered her face with her hands and started softly crying.

Cari was the first one to move, she jumped up and wrapped Denni in a tight hug, Mary and Kimberly followed suit. They all started crying.

"Hey it's okay, Denni I'm sure everything will be okay." Kimberly reassured Denni, once they had all stopped crying.

"No, I don't think so." Denni replied.

"What? why not?" Mary asked her.

"All of my family members went yesterday to get tested to see if any of them were a match in order to donate bone marrow and none of them were. Because I have O positive type blood and none of my family has O positive because it is pretty rare."

"Surely they know someone who has the type blood." Cari reasoned.

"We asked the doctor the same question and he said they had no one on their list." Denni replied.

The girls agreed that they would go and get tested the next day to see if they were a match to be a bone marrow donor.

"You don't have to do this for me." Denni told them. "You just met me two weeks ago."

"Yes we do," Kimberly said firmly. "because we are friends, and friends help their friends on matter what."

"Aww thank you guys I don't .know what I would do without you!" Denni said.

"Group hug!" Mary yelled.

Ben watched as they all fell giggling into each others arms, they all stood up and decided to go to Mary's house to hang out and watch some movies.

He waited until they walked out of sight, before he climbed out of the tree. Ben slowly walked home, with his head bent low, his thoughts turned over in his mind. Leukemia. What does that mean? He had heard of Leukemia before, but he did not quite know what it was. It took him about twenty minutes to walk home, he went into the study to look up Leukemia in the dictionary.

Ben now stared at the words on the page, not believing that this could be happening to Denni. From the first time he saw her, Ben knew there was just something about her that was different than the other girls he had dated. Although in his nineteen years there were very few girls that he had went on dates with, he never went more than three dates with the same girl. Most of the girls wanted nothing to do with him, Ben was sometimes known as a practical joker, he would play a joke here or there, but not everyone liked his jokes.