red band society // 5sos au

one - health

Hey there, welcome to Ocean Park Hospital. You'd think our lives are very boring here but you couldn't be more wrong. Make yourself comfortable because I'm going to tell you about us. It's a pretty long story but trust me, you won't get bored.

Oh, no I didn't start the Red Band Society. I really wish I did because it's a great idea and the creators totally get a lot of credit for it. Some bad and some good but they still got credit for it. But I'm not smart enough or creative enough to come up with that so I ended up being the fourth member of it.

Calum Hood and Michael Clifford, now 16, decided to come together and make this society group type of thing. They share a room and have been roommates since they both entered the hospital.

Calum was 14 when he was admitted into the hospital. He had anaplastic ependymoma. That's a brain tumor that forms from the cells that line the central canal of the spinal chord. He had surgery and it was removed but he had malignant ependymoma, which basically meant that the tumor contained cancerous cells. So now he has brain cancer and he's been my chemotherapy buddy for the past year.

Michael came in a few weeks after Calum, earning the spot as his roommate. He was also 14 when he came in because he was diagnosed with stage 4 thyroid cancer with metastastis forming in his lungs. He got surgery to remove his thyroid gland but since the cancer had spread to his lungs, he walks around with an oxygen tank or else he'll die.

The two became best friends because of their music taste and the fact that Calum's parents brought in his video game system or whatever and they would play FIFA together. One day Calum's sister noticed how close the two had become and gave them friendship bracelets in a way. Except they weren't handwoven and made out of embroidery floss like what girls wear, they were red wristbands. Kind of like the ones that you get at concerts or at the hospital, but they had to make sure that it was a different shad of red and looked different enough that they wouldn't get confused with the red bands that the hospital actually gives out for medial reasons.

Then Luke Hemmings moved into the room across the hall from the boys. This was a few months later and Luke was 13 going on 14. He has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and was one of the rare cases that was caused by a lack of a certain type of protein. His COPD is really bad, even now, and there's no cure for it so he just has to live with it. Since it's really bad in his case, he's stuck in this hospital with us, trying to keep up with us, with an oxygen tank, Michael, and Michael's oxygen tank by his side.

They soon became really close to Luke since they were in the same grade, they had the same tutor and the same school/homework to do. Luke's kind of the smartest one out of the three and noticed the two having trouble with their work while he was walking back to his room. He popped his head in the room and asked them if they needed help. They did and soon they requested Calum's sister to get another red wristband for Luke.

I'm next. I joined about three or four months after Luke did. I have acute myeloid leukemia, which I'm pretty sure is what most kids have in those cancer books and cancer movies but hey, it happened to me. I was diagnosed a day after my 14th birthday. I'm a pretty smart kid and knew about this type of stuff since my older brother is a doctor but they told me that the five-year survival rate of people with AML is about 24% so I'm probably not going to live long enough to get married or have kids but I'm still alive now so that's all that matters. The first step after my diagnosis was induction therapy and the goal was complete remission, which was basically to have my blood count back to normal and all the signs of the leukemia to be gone. Well that happened. Almost happened, at least. I was in remission and two days before I was scheduled to leave the hospital, it came back.

And it's still here.

Well my room was conveniently next to Calum's and Michael's and with just my luck, Luke was hanging out in their room that day. Michael had his guitar out and despite the doctors telling him not to, he was playing it with Calum singing along. Luke and Michael tried to sing but with their lung problems, it was rather hard. They were playing Wonderwall by Oasis, and I was in love with the song at the moment so I decided to walk in and sing along with them. I enjoyed their company and they enjoyed mine and eventually they asked Calum's sister to get yet another red wristband. At that point, she was tired of going back so she bought three more in case they found any other friends. And we did.

Cassie became my roommate shortly after my 15th birthday, which I had celebrated with the rest of the Red Band Society and the nurses. She was in for anorexia nervosa and on top of that she was depressed and self harmed. Out of all of the anorexia patients in the wing, Cassie was the most tolerable. She surprisingly was quick to become my friend and was very open to treatment and getting better. I introduced her to the boys and the five of us quickly bonded. She was given a red wristband and that was it.

That's how the Red Band Society was formed. But there's more to it. After being formed, we did a lot of things, which resulted in us getting trouble and things of that nature.

Now that's what I'm going to tell you about next.