The Bucket List

It's just a checkup. Right?

(A/N: 1666 words. Amiright or Amiright?)

(A/N: C R I N G E)

1278 days before

I sighed looking out the window of the minivan that my "Mom" owned. John sat with me in the back seat playing some game on his DS. He kept insisting on me playing with him but I didn't want to. I was more focused on the passing tree's, ladies walking their dogs, the birds in the sky, anything to distract me from the anxiety of the Doctors office. I never liked going to the Doctors office. There's always someone dying or something bad happening. I also really hated when my foster family spent so much money on me even if they insisted that it was fine. To me it wasn't fine, to me it was a debt that I had to pay later on in life. Whether "Mom" liked it or not I would pay her back later.

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After we parked in the parking deck we got out of the car and walked inside. This was it. It's just a checkup, there's no need to be so nervous about it. John was getting a checkup too. He said he gets one every year because Mr. Egbert always wanted to make sure everything was okay. I guess the only thing that didn't feel right about me was this cough that i've had for a while.

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We sat in the waiting room for what seemed like forever, which was probably only actually around 30 minutes, until our names finally got called. I let John go first since he's done this before. It was just a blood test, all they do is take a little blood and it'll be done and over with. Nothing to worry about.

Instead of taking John's sample and testing it then coming back with the results and then taking my blood the Doctors insisted that they get the samples together to save time. I gave them my arm as I sat in the chair as they put the tourniquet around my upper arm. I closed my eyes tightly looking away. I felt a little prick on my arm and winced slightly as the plastic tube filled with my blood. A few seconds later the nurse untied the tourniquet and put a bandaid over the area where she took blood from. I sighed and went to sit next to John while waiting for the Doctor to come back with the results.

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Sometimes I think Doctors purposely take forever to do things. I mean I understand you can't do things instantly but does it really take an hour and a half? Like seriously it's just a little blood hurry up and test it why don't you.

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Finally, after almost 2 hours of sitting in an uncomfortable hospital bed shared with John, The Doctor and nurse came back into the room with a few papers and clipboards looking very official. The Doctor, a burly looking man with a beard, probably middle aged, sat down in his swivel stool. Ya know the Doctor chair that everyone wants to sit in?

"So John, you test results came back and it seems you are still just as healthy as you were last time." The burly man smiled at John. The Doctor looked back at his clipboard "Karkat was it?" I nodded as he turned to Mrs. Egbert. " I noticed some deformities in your son's test and I wanted to do some more testing just to be sure about and test our hypothesis. Of course, this would cost you, unless hes on your insurance plan." Mrs. Egbert nodded "Yes he is on the insurance plan, but I'm not sure i'm following what you mean by deformities" she looked confused. "Well, in the scanning we found what seemed to be traces of a rare form of cancer called Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia or CLL for short, but we can't be 100% sure until we do some more testing. We would like to transfer you and your son to an overnight room just to be safe." Mrs. Egbert covered her mouth with the back of her hand. My mouth had dropped open and I had stopped listening after the word cancer had come out of his mouth. What have I done? I barged into their life and I returned their hospitality with a gift of cancer. I looked down at my hands feeling horrible for bestowing such a wonderful family with such a horrible gift. The next thing I remember was being pushed off in a hospital gurney to get an xray after the Doctor had felt my neck and underneath my arms. I had assumed that John and "Mom" had gone to the overnight room.