Bloodstream ∞ Sprousehart

White walls, white floors ∞ 2

I sat in the passengers seat as Lili drove to the hospital. She kept glancing at me, worry was plastered on her face. 

"Lili I'm fine." I continued to wheeze.

"Cole you're really not." She said as she bit her lip. We pulled up to the hospital and waited to be admitted. Lili held my hand whilst she filled out the forms.

"Who's your emergency contact? Dylan? KJ?" She asked me.

"You of course, why would you even question it?" I said quietly. 

"No, I was just thinking you would choose one of your friends." She mumbled.

"I do not want them in an emergency, not at all." I sighed. Lili handed the form back to the nurse and we sat and waited. We were finally called in. They asked me for my symptoms. Lili told them pain in chest, coughing, difficulty breathing, and fever. The doctor looked alarmed as he scribbled something on a pad of paper. 

"The first thing we need to do is a blood test." The doctor told us as he and a nurse started to get things ready.

"I need to but in here, but does sickle cell anemia run in the family?" The nurse asked me.

"No, I don't believe so." My voice trailed off.

"Well Cole you should ask your parents before you make a decision like that." Lili whispered to me. I nodded. As they put the needle in my arm, I squeezed Lili's hand. Firstly, I dialled my dad's number as he would be easier to talk to than my desolate mom. 

"Hey Cole! How are things going?" My dad picked up straight away. 

"Um, well I'm in the hospital-" He cut me off.

"Why are you in the hospital? Are you okay? Is Lili okay?" He said hastily. 

"Yeah Lili's fine, no I'm the one being admitted. I'm having a blood test and the doctor wanted to know if sickle cell anemia ran in the family?" I asked him. There was a long pause.

"Yeah, it does." He said. "It's mainly on your mom's side but a couple of my relatives had it." 

"Okay, thanks dad. I'll tell the doctor." I whispered.

"Okay buddy, hope things go okay. Say hi to Lili for me." He sighed. 

"I will, bye." And I hung up.

"My dad says hi." I whispered to Lili.

"What did he say?" Lili said anxiously.

"He said it's mainly on my moms side, but a couple of people have had it on my dads side." I told the room.

"Okay, it may be sickle cell, but we'll run a couple more tests to see if we can rule it out." The doctor announced. 

"Wait," Lili cut in. "What is sickle cell?" 

"It's a genetic disorder that breaks down blood cells." The nurse explained to her as she removed the needle. The nurse took it off to get tested.

"Now, there are a couple possible things it could be. I'm thinking Leukemia, sepsis, a serve case of influenza, or sickle cell." The doctor listed. It'll be several hours till we get your results so we'll set you up in an empty examination room with some antibiotics. Once we get the results, we'll decide what to do from there." The doctor told Lili and I. We were taken into another room and set up with an IV. 

"Lili you can go you know." I whispered to her. 

"Cole are you out of your mind?" She whisper-yelled. "I'm not leaving you, ever!"

"Thank you." I mouthed to her. 

"Now," she grinned, pulling out her laptop. "You know I never leave home without my computer, let's watch Netflix." As we waited for the results we watched South Park. A couple of hours in we got some sandwiches from a vending machine and coffee. My phone blew up as we waited.

Buddy, u ok? From KJ

Roberto told me you were in the hospital! Are you okay what's happening? From Cami

DONT DIE From Casey

Sprouse you better be okay From Vanessa

Lili told me you were in the hospital, is there something wrong? Do you need me to come to Vancouver? From Dylan

Dylan's was the only one I took notice from.

I waiting for results, if things aren't okay could you come?  I texted back

Of course! Keep me on stand by!

After about an hour, the doctor came by with the results.

"Mr Sprouse, the results say that you have Sickle Cell Anemia."