Three ways to love | j.hs

17. Her secret

Alive or just breathing?

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Sooyeon's P.O.V.

The hospital office was as devoid of beauty as I was of hope.

Its walls were simply cream, not peeling or dirty, just cream. There was no decoration at all, save the limp curtain that momentously hid the background behind the glassy window. It was perhaps once the kind of green that reminds people of spring-time and hope, but it's faded so much that the hue was insipid.

The doctor's face was still like a brick. His movements were all sharp and with purpose, he analyzed the chart for a few seconds and looked up with a perfunctory smile flashed for just a moment.

Yet this was the man you both prayed for and never wanted to see in your life. This eminent oncologist had the ability to save but the task of often delivering the death prognosis and estimating the amount of time his patient had left.

That's why I hated hospitals. I always did.

I lost the two people I loved the most in this world in a damn hospital.

And now I wasn't sure if I was going to lose myself as well.

Funny, isn't it?

"So," The doctor finally broke the silence, " I had a look at your test results. As expected, your chest X-rays showed a small number of enlarged lymph nodes and your high white blood cell count has almost doubled in the last few weeks."

I just sat there silently, waiting for him to keep on explaining.

"The good news is that the MUGA scan showed that your heart is functioning okay, as well as your lungs and kidney. It hasn't reached your bones yet, so this will definitely ease the treatment process."

A sudden wave of relief washed through my body. At last there was still some hope left for me.

"I understand." I calmly responded although my posture was as still as a rock and my palms were sweating like crazy.

I had stage 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Basically cancer.

I was diagnosed almost three weeks ago and haven't told anyone about it yet.

Not even to my aunt. Not even to Taehyung.

It's because this is all so new to me and so hard to process that I can't find the proper words to say. And I certainly don't want people to pity me either.

It feels as if the entire sky has crumbled down and I have to endure its weight on my shoulder. It feels as if I'm drowning and instead of going up,I'm just being pulled further down.

I cried for days when I found out and I've never felt more scared or hopeless in my entire life but,I realized that if I wanted to be okay again and overcome this,I had to pull myself together and be strong.

"How soon do I need to start my treatment?" I asked as the doctor let out a sigh.

"The sooner, the better chances you have for a successful recovery."