In The Blood

Fears Resurfacing

(Chris)

"Please, Chris, please, Chris, please, Chris," echoed in my brain, each 'please' a punch in the gut, a twist of the knife trying to stab me in the chest. Adam was begging. He was begging me to give in, to acquiesce, to a blood test I actively feared, truly frightened of what may lie within my blood. Fears of my own, a latent fear for so many years that I'd laid to rest twenty-six years ago. I was scared to death of what my blood would have to say. I knew what it wouldn't say and that it'd flat out refute these drug allegations (I hadn't done weed or anything since my junior year in college) but what it might say, might reveal, was far scarier to me than any drug or what any punishment may entail. Deep within me, I was afraid I already knew. I know the symptoms all too well. I didn't feel sick yet. I didn't have a lingering cold, and there are a million reasons for the tiredness but all the damn bleeding... I don't take aspirin and I haven't for years because I know of the risks for bleeding. A teeny-tiny voice in the back of my head taunted me... 'I'm ba-ack! Long time to see! Let me just remind you of ghosts past!' Wham! I closed my eyes, scared, deeply scared, for Adam, for my beloved friends, for all that I've built up that could be gone in an instant, for what'd be in store for me. What are the chances I could beat it a second time?

All my instincts, my gut, and my fears were driving me to outright refusal, repercussions be damned. Would they really jail a cancer patient? I didn't particularly want to find out. I couldn't really see it though. More than likely, I'd just be sentenced to months of chemo, which'd be punishment in and of itself. Chemo is fucking brutal.

Yet here was Adam, begging me otherwise. Begging me to submit to my fears, to have blood drawn for this damn drug test. As though that was the only thing on my mind. Illegal drugs. Hours ago he'd been as frightened as I was that leukemia may again be rearing its ugly head and here he was begging for a blood test that I was scared of. My fears. His fears. Our fears. Leukemia was both of our fears.

Adam looked at me, his eyes red, tears running down his face in a display of utter breakdown. Twice in six hours though tucked deep within for twenty-three years. He was rapidly losing it. Begging me for reassurance, for protection of sorts. Trying to protect his family, his life... our lives. Protect him from... from me? From my choices and actions? From outside threats? From within? My instinct to protect him was strong but my fears equally as strong. Fear of cancer, fear of dying, is a powerful fear, a driving force, an instinct of survival... if we did not have that, we'd never make it far. Which was more powerful within me: my own personal fears that I held close (stay strong, Chris, if nothing else, for Adam), or my protective instincts, not for me but for him. He was the one person in this world I would do anything for. I would risk everything for him; push come to shove, I would risk not only my own life for him, but Tim's, Rob's, Austin's, and Chance's as well. I knew early in life that I was the only one he could depend on and decided enough was enough and took her down the instant I caught her hand down in his pants. Never. Again. Would she sexually abuse him. And she never did, not after I punched her into next week. I should have fucking called the cops on her right then but I was afraid child protective services would separate Adam and me. And that I could never have. I needed Adam and Adam needed me. Three punches (and multiple punitive lashes) later, it stopped. No more fondles ever again. I made sure of that.

My younger brother's scared eyes locked firmly on mine as he pleaded with me to allow these doctors to take my blood, to read levels and to possibly detect an evil disease that probably lurks within, to give me once again a diagnosis that would send my life into turmoil and an utter hellhole. Something clicked into place and I knew, without a doubt, where my heart and loyalties lie. My fears bit at my skin and I was certain abnormal blood cell counts coursed through my veins, yet my head began to nod, the need to protect Adam outweighing everything else.