A NEW BEGINNING

Family & Friends

Chapter 32: Family & Friends
Friday, December 14th, 2018 - Monday December 24th, 2018

After about 20 minutes of sitting on the floor of Anna's hospital room, they pulled themselves together, so they could break the news to their family & friends who were waiting for them in the waiting room.

"You ready to tell everyone?" Logan asked Rory as he helped her to her feet.
"Ready, as I'll ever be." Rory replied.

Rory didn't know what to do. She was so heart broken, but she knew that they needed their family and friends support during this difficult time. They didn't know how long it will last, it could last months or even years before Anna was cancer free. Or she might not make it to her first birthday. There were so many facts to consider, but the first thing that they had to do was to tell everyone.

Logan opened the door, and stepped outside as he held onto Rory's hand. When they rounded the corner to the waiting area they were in shock to see the amount of people there for them.

The crowd consisted of Lorelei, Luke, April, Mitchum, Shira, Honor, Josh, Christopher, Gigi, Emily, Finn, Colin, Robert, Stephanie, Rosemary, Lucy, Juliet, Lane, Zack, Paris, Sookie, Jess, Babette, Miss Patty, and Michel.

Rory was super surprised to see some of the people, especially the people of Stars Hallow. But she was grateful that they were all there for Anna, and for them.

Logan cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. As soon as everyone noticed them, the waiting room went silent.

"Is everything okay?" Mitchum asked.

Mitchum could see the pain in Logan's eyes, and he knew that something was wrong, and that there was nothing anyone could do to ease the pain that was in his eyes.

"How's Anna?" Lorelei asked.

Lorelei could see the pain in Rory's bloodshot eyes. Something was worrying her, and she knew that whatever it was it wasn't going to go away anytime soon.

"Anna has...." Rory began but she couldn't say the word that needed to be said. She started sobbing before she could even tell them.

"Anna has cancer." Logan stepped in as he held onto Rory. "She has Acute Lymphoblastic leukemia.

All the women started sobbing, and one by one they all made their way to Rory and Logan and gave them hugs, but also telling them that they are there if they need them, for anything.

With a lot of thank you's, hugs and light kisses from their family and friends everyone just stood or sank into a chair in a silent waiting room. No one knew what to say to each other. Everyone was beyond scared, they all felt helpless towards them, there was nothing anyone could do besides pray that Anna would pull through and be able to live her life to the fullest.

Rory held onto Logan, as her body trembled with sobs.

Rory couldn't believe this was happening to her. She didn't think anything could hurt so much, but this certain was at the top of her list of hurt. She has endured a great amount of hurt in the last 33 years, from her breakups with Dean and Jess. Having her father in and out of her life. To Logan walking away at her college graduation. But also walking away from him in New Hampshire a little over a year ago. But this has topped all of them. The love for a child is never ending, and you would do anything to keep them safe. But there was nothing her or Logan could have done to keep this from happening to Anna.

After telling everyone the news, Rory and Logan went back into Anna's room. Anna was still asleep, when they returned. Her body was lifeless, and there was nothing either one of them could do for her besides be by her side.

The remainder of the night was spent by Anna's bedside. Logan and Rory would take turns sitting with her throughout the night, while the other slept. Even though sleep was very hard to come by, they both knew that they had to in order to keep up their strength for the coming days, weeks and months ahead of them.

From December 15th up until Christmas Eve. They spent everyday at the hospital. Only going home long enough to shower, sleep and get a change of clothes.

On the morning of December 15th, Anna was awake but she was weak but she also was very tired still.

She spent most of her time sleeping, during the first couple of days after getting admitted into the hospital. Between getting blood work done almost every hour to keep an eye on the cancer to see if it was growing. But lucky enough for Anna, it hasn't grown much over the three days before treatments, and it didn't travel to her spine or brain.

On December 18th, Anna started treatments. Treatments took a lot out of Anna, since she was doing treatments three times a day. The first treatment started at 9am. The second started at 3pm and the last was at 9pm. Each  treatment is only a half hour. But the days were long because at the end of each treatment, Anna would become nauseas. But after the first day of Chemotherapy, they gave Anna anti-sickness medicines to prevent the nausea.

The first set of treatments, which is the induction remission phase, were going to last between 4-6 weeks. This is an initial intensive treatment using a combination of medicines. This aims to kill most of the leukaemia cells. At the end of the phase there are usually no leukaemia cells (or fewer than 5%) detectable in the a blood sample. This is called being "in remission", but it doesn't mean it's cured. This phase will take Anna up until January 29th, but there will be a blood test done on January 15th, to check for leukaemia cells. If there is none then they will move onto phase 2.

On December 24th, they received good news that Anna could go home, so they could spend Christmas Day with them, but would have to be back by 8am to begin her treatments. It was Rory's turn to head home after the 2nd set of treatments, and come back for her last one at 9pm, in which Anna was getting released so she could spend her first Christmas at home.

On the way back to the house, Rory started to become nausea, but she didn't really think much about it. It was probably stress with everything that has been going on. On Rory's "break", she was planning to get a shower and get some sleep.

When Rory entered the house, the first door she spotted was the office. That was her first stop, she hasn't written anything since the day before they found out Anna had cancer.  She hasn't been in any mood to write when she would return home for her "breaks." But this day she felt she needed to go to her office, but not to write but to think. When she went inside and sat down at her desk, she pulled out her planner, and started to flip through it.

Going back through the months, she realized that her birth control shot was up in September, and that she didn't go back to get it updated. But there was no way she could be pregnant, they been having a lot of sex, but they have been using condoms for the most part, just to be on the safe side. But then Rory thought about the night of the Reception and also all throughout their honeymoon. Those nights they didn't, and there was a few nights once they were back home they didn't.

Rory jumped out of her chair and headed out towards the pharmacy.