Soul Song

Chapter 4

"It's not cancer." the best words I'd heard all day, all week in fact, especially since school was back in from Christmas break.

"Ok, great. But there's still something in there isn't there?" he nodded.

"Yes there is." that's all he says, he just stops at that.

"Ok, but what is it?" he short of shrugs.

"Well, that we don't happen to know. She seems to have some tumors but they aren't cancerous but they aren't harmless either. They've still got something to them, we just don't know yet. We will, of course, need to remove them. This should allow you to talk and breathe much better once we get those out of there but we will have to study them to make sure that whatever it is, isn't going to come back after we've gotten the tumors out. It still seems sort of odd. Most of the time, if it's not cancer, it's at least something that we can read. We are either completely messing up at something or this is really bizarre, whatever it is. We'll figure it out though, I promise."

Jonathan pats me on the shoulder and let's us go. Again, probably the closest thing he's ever gotten to considering me family. I called a gathering at one of the houses which ended up being Ace's.

"He said it's not cancer." they all cheer or something similar but again, Ace and Jackson both know me too well. She nudges him and he nods.

"There's something else, isn't there?" I kind of nod and shrug.

"Yeah, you got me. So, there is still something in there but they are going to have to study the tumors to figure it out." I pause. Hunter is about to ask something but I think I've got a good guess already.

"Yes, that does mean that I'm going to have surgery to get the tumors out but as I said, at least it's not cancer. They said that once they get them out, I should be able to speak and breathe better which sounded pretty good to me. They said that they would have a set date for the surgery pretty soon." everyone just kind of ponders what I've said for a moment. Hunter is the first to speak.

"Well, that's good then. You can do chorus and band and stuff better. So, did they say what they think it could be or did they just say they were going to study it?" I just shrugged again. It seems to be appropriate.

"As far as I can tell, they are absolutely clueless about what it is or if they suspect something, they haven't told us." Hunter nods.

"Ok so basically, they aren't telling you anything you didn't already know."

"Well, no, not necessarily. They did tell me that I have tumors but that I don't have cancer so they're telling me something. Jonathan said today, that this is confusing. He said that they should have been able to figure something out by now but something just isn't coming up right. Just one piece of the jigsaw is missing but that one piece, is somehow the most important piece in the box. He said that they should have seen something that tells them what it is but they aren't seeing anything. I would assume that if they can't see anything coming up, then there's nothing there but apparently, they think there is still something no matter whether they find it or not." 

"So, what do you think it is?" Keaton's question caught us all off guard.

"Well, I -- I don't know. If the doctors don't know what it is, I assure you, I'm going to be wrong."

"Well, I know, but just take a guess. If we are just going to sit here and let us drive us crazy, we might as well make a game out of it."

"Well then, what do you think it is?"

"My thoughts, some weird disease they've never heard of. I mean, that'd be cool right? You'd get it named after you and everything."

"Yeah not too sure that'd be so 'cool'. If it's something that nobody's ever heard of, I'm gonna say they probably don't have a cure for it. I would kind of prefer them be able to fix it."