Chapter One
Destiny
The waiting room was just like every other boring, ordinary waiting room. Complete with magazines, bland wall art and lights, uncomfortable plastic chairs and squeaky tile floors. The one thing that really made me wonder about the...mental health...of the clinic's interior decorator was the abundance of funeral advertisements. Not to mention the different sales advertisements for coffins and life insurance. Apparently, bright neon orange coffins were only $2,899.99! Yeah, like I'd want to be buried in a giant orange.
After checking in, my mom and I went and sat at the edge of the waiting room. Not to close to people, but not too far way that we looked weird. While my mom reached for a Better Homes and Gardens magazine, I sat back and turned on my smart phone. I went into Facebook and being the typical teenager that I am, with no life, I posted a status saying: "At the clinic. Hopefully THIS time the doctor can figure out what's wrong with me."
Within minutes, I had likes and comments from my two best friends, Lizzy and Ali. Lizzy was an 18 year old girl who last year had just graduated high school. Ali was a grade lower than me - in 10th grade. She was the most unique among the three of us. Ali had moved to the United States when she was 7 years old - fleeing from Iraq with her family. She had seen things that no one should've seen and sometimes it still haunts her. Both Lizzy and I used to rant about how hard life is and complain about everything. Then Ali had had enough and told us everything she's been through. She told us about the time where she had to sit there in the dust and watch her baby sister die in her arms from a bullet wound to the skull because some Iraqi insurgent thought it would be funny to shoot an 18 month old in the head. Lizzy and I haven't complained about anything since then.
Suddenly I get texts from both of them asking how I'm doing. I reply telling them I'm fine but since the doctors at my last visit noticed my red blood cell count was low they said to come back when the test results came in. Yesterday, they had called my mom telling her the results were back. So lo and behold, she made an appointment and here I am. Lizzy then asks me if I want to hang out when I get home. I text back saying sure.
"Destiny Johnson?" A nurse calls out. I stand up and almost have to pry the magazine out of my mom's hands to get her to look up. She sighs, pats her hair and stands up. I almost have to gag at the awkwardness of my mother.
Anyway, we follow the nurse through some hallways where she has me stand on a scale. I cringe as I look down at the number glowing red on the LCD screen. I've been trying so hard to gain weight but it's like the harder I try, the more I lose. The past 3 days between clinic visits, I've lost four pounds. One does not just lose four pounds by doing nothing. Lizzy and Ali are jealous that I can lose weight so easily. It might be just me but I have an underlying feeling something is wrong.
The nurse records my height and temperature then leads both me and my mom into an exam room. She sits down at a computer and starts to log in information about me. I should probably have a very colorful medical history considering all the clinic visits I've had lately. The nurse wraps a BP cuff around my arm and records a good one-twenty over sixty. She then takes my pulse and proceeds to bombard me with questions about why I was here today.
"Okay so I've had a lot of weight loss in the past few weeks and it's kind of scaring me." I opened my mouth to go on but the nurse butts in with an irritating comment.
"That's it?" My face expression drops and for a nanosecond I give her "the look" and then continue.
"No. That's not it. The last time I was here I had been sick for three weeks so my doctor decided to run a bunch of tests because Tylenol and Ibuprofen wern't helping anything. He prescribed some antibiotic and took some blood, urine samples and a strep culture. Everything was clean except for blood work. He noticed a decrease in my red and white blood cells. He told me that in a few days if the medication he gave me didn't seem to help at all, to come back in. So here I am." I gulped in air without trying to cough up a crud load of stuff. At this point, it was very hard. The nurse looked at me skeptically and entered in some more info.
"Thanks. The doctor will be right in with you." She half-smiled and left.
"She wasn't very nice." My mom said. I replied with a wet cough.
"I'm sorry you don't feel good honey. I really am."
"I know mom. Thanks for the emotional support though."
It probably took a good fifteen to twenty minutes before my doctor knocked and came in. He sits down and looks at me. After a lengthy conversation between him, my mother and I, we decided on a different medication to give to me. With a handshake, he left. My mother and I gathered our things and left the clinic.
The ride home I had to use my inhaler a total of 3 times because of the tightness in my chest and shortness of breath. Lizzy was waiting in my house when we got home. My mother thought nothing of it. Often times we would come home from shopping or a movie and Lizzy would just be sitting there, watching TV or eating food in our house, waiting for me. At first it was an odd behavior. One that my mom didn't approve of but after a while, Lizzy became part of our family and now it was odd not to see her there. This time, she was eating popcorn and drinking tea in our living room, scrolling through our Netflix.
"Well hello there my minion!" She said as I walked through the door.
"Am I supposed to laugh?"
"Sorry I forgot you have no sense of humor anymore." She said sarcastically.
"I"m sick, dummy. Don't get close or you'll catch whatever it is I have."
"Eh I don't get sick easily. Come on germs! Let's see what you got!" She pounds her chest like a gorilla and growls. That put me over the edge and I start to laugh. Laughter that turns to coughing which turns to coughing up green crap.
"Destiny Hope! You got your throat phlegm on my shirt!" She walked into the kitchen and reached for a paper towel. I follow her, accidentally banging my side against the counter.
"You made me laugh."
"That is true. Good point." She came over and hugged me. I started to cough again and she jumped back. "Okay you need tea." She bustles about our kitchen, and within moments starts heating water in the kettle. She hands me the Netflix remote and sends me into the den to pick a movie.
"What are you doing, Liz?" I ask.
"I'm going to take care of you."
"Why?"
"Because you are my babe. And that's what babes do for each other." I laughed painfully.
"True that man." I go into the den and snuggle up in a recliner chair, pulling the fuzzy, impossibly soft fluffy blankets up around my shoulders. A whistle starts to sound in the kitchen then dies out. Moments after that I have to uncurl my arms from the warm womb of blankets to take the cup of steaming tea Lizzy had just made for me.
"It's got honey in it. Honey helps your throat." She goes to sit on the couch.
"Thanks hon." I smile and sip at the hot liquid, trying not to burn my lips off.
"Sure. This movie?" I nod and we proceed to do one of the best things known to teenagers around the world: nothing at all for the rest of the afternoon.
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Thanks for the read guys! I really appreciate it! Please leave a comment below what you thought of this chapter! I read each and every comment and love it when I get to read what you guys think! Critiques are always nice as well :3
Believe it or not, this is basically me right now. I'm so sick it's RIDICULOUS!!! I've had this head cold for like, 2 weeks and I'm so sick of it! (ha ha. see what I did there? I'm sick of being sick. Okay. Hmm. Ha. Ha. *sigh* ) ***Stay tuned for the next chapter!***
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