A Dying Girl's List

Chapter 4

Lissa woke up the next day in a hospital bed, with her parents and Jace by her side. Stephanie wasn't there.

Stephanie was at the beach, completely uninformed that her best friend was in the hospital. Steph had switched off her phone and was walked along the coastline. Her grey pants rolled up to her knees, her feet splashing the water as she walked, and tears slowly flowing down her face. Things hadn't been okay with her lately...

“What happened?” asked Lissa. The last thing she remembered was being at the carnival...with Jace.

“You fainted at the carnival,” Jace replied.

“And how did you guys get here?” Lissa asked her parents.

“This young man over here...” Lissa's mother indicated with her hand towards Jace, wanting to know his name.

“Jace, Mrs. Stewart,” she pursed her lips, like she disliked the way he addressed her.

“Jace gave us a call from your phone and told us you fainted, and that he took you to the hospital, so we rushed down.”

Lissa faced Jace. Gratefulness plastered on her face. She didn't expect him to call her parents, much less for them to show up.

“Thanks, Jace,”

He was about to answer when the doctor entered the room. A young man, probably in his late twenties, maybe early, early thirties. Lissa was expecting an older pot-bellied man, with greying features. Not someone that...young. Lissa could tell he had only been a doctor for a couple of years – four, maybe. He was probably doing his residency. Always expect the unexpected, turned out to be a new motto after that day.

“Miss Stewart?” he asked, looking down at his clipboard.

“That's me,” she answered. He focused his blue eyes on her and spoke – after reading the notes on his clipboard.

Who still carries a clipboard around? Everything nowadays is digital, Lissa wondered as she waited for the doctor to tell her that she was fine and that she could go home.

Immediately.

“We received the results of the test we took last nightt when you arrived and...” his eyes fell on Jace and he looked very perplexed. Of course, he would be, Jace was a tan-skinned, brown-haired, brown-eyed man, who was standing in the same vicinity of a blonde-headed, blue-eyed, white-skinned family trio.

“I do apologize for my question, but are you a family member of the patient?” asked the doctor, his eyebrows creating an arch on his forehead.

Lissa looked up at Jace, and at the same time, he looked down at her.

“Uhm, no, doctor,” Jace answered, with a subtle shake of his head.

“Can I ask you to leave the room please, this is confidential, only to be shared with the intermediate family?”

Lissa gave Jace an apologetic look and he smiled down sadly at her. After Jace closed the door, the doctor started again,

“Okay, so we've done an MRI, and discovered that you have a costive developing tumor on your brain. It's something we call Medulloblastoma an--"

“Is that why I got those headaches?” Lissa interrupted. Seeing as that meant she wouldn't be discharged, she needed to know about everything.

“No. You suffered a brain stem stroke, resulting in the headaches and dizziness you experienced. It may continue as the tumor grows. The sooner this condition is diagnosed and the sooner the treatment is started, the better is the prognosis for a brain stem stroke, unfortunately, the timespan for this prognosis has been exceeded, so nothing can be done now. It would have been a different situation if you notified us about the headaches and dizziness sooner. If I'm not wrong, you had a check-up last Friday, am I correct?” Lissa nodded.