Chapter I
Here’s the thing, I beg you not to be the kind of person who feels bad for Ben, he would hate that, and we should offer him at least a bit of respect, after all, getting the news that you have lung cancer is not exactly easy to swallow. He kept saying to himself “Never have I ever smoked a cigarette, never have I ever used a e-cigarette device, never have I ever inhaled weed, never have I ever touched a hookah with my lips. FUCK. FUCK. Fuck”
The day before the diagnosis, he started to fill like his chest was burning, and he felt his lungs working with a kind of hiccup, failing to ingest the necessary oxygen and leaving him breathless. It felt weird, but he didn’t want to scare his mother, so he went upstairs to his room, hoping that it would pass.
When he woke up the next morning, the symptoms had gotten worse, it was Saturday, no school, so he pretended he was a sleeping until his mother left for her weekend job, money was a little short and going to see a doctor was out of the question. But there was a workaround, Jayden’s mom was a first responder in the trauma room of Saint Teresa’s Hospital, so he texted his friend asking for help, but not saying why he needed to see his mom. A few minutes after his text, Jayden told him that his mom was home and that she would be happy to examine him.
They lived very close to each other, he was in the richer part of town while Ben was a working-class neighborhood, that was never a problem for them, as they knew each other since they were five and Jayden lend him his toy truck while playing on the school sandbox.
Ben’s first thought was to go riding on his bike, but a few meters showed him that it wasn’t going to happen, so he decided to walk, yet at every step there was a kind of ever-changing pain in his chest, head and stomach, almost as if all the systems within his body were failing to respond. “This is not good, not good at all.”
It was a sunny day, a rare occasion in the raining season, the wind messed up his red hair, and the heat made him sweat. When he arrived at Jayden's house, he was a mess. “Dude, you’re not looking very healthy to me.” Ben’s normal response would be to laugh at his obvious comment, but he couldn’t. At this point, he was feeling like something terrible was alive inside the perimeter of his skin.
“Come hear, let me hear your lungs.” Said Lara, while holding her stethoscope. She pointed to the nearest chair where Ben sited, hoping that she would hear a hard-rock-metal-band. She made no noise, it was an interjection more than a sound, something like: “hummm” and that was the drop that filled the glass with anguish.
To sum everything up, from there they went to the hospital Jayden’s mom worked at, and Ben heard many “Humms” and no answer.
“Ben, we need to call your mother, would it be ok if I do it? I’ll make sure not to worry her."
Worry her, thought Ben, I am the one who is freaked out.
It seems Lara read his mind, so she added: “There is no reason to worry yet, Ben.”
The yet is what was killing him. So Jayden, reading the room, and knowing he needed to entertain Ben, got up and asked him to follow. Two floor down, there was a recreation room made for what, six-year-olds, but Jayden seemed exited. Going through a pile of board games, he found The Game of Life.
“Sorry, but I just have to say that your choice of game is a bit screwed up…”
We both laughed, and just that sent Ben into a coughing fit and progressed to a lack of air he had never experienced up to now.
Slowly they made their way back to where Lara was, she wasn’t alone, Ben’s mother was there, was she?, thought Ben, she seems liked a ghost, pale and shaking a bit.
So the group went into a consult with a general doctor, who said that they would like to keep Ben at the hospital for some tests. They took a bit of his blood, and after that, there was the pet scan CT. From there they took him to a room where Jayden, Lara and her mom welcomed him in a way to try to kill the daemon in the room. Soon enough, a nurse came to administer a serum to keep him hydrated, added a few stickier patches on his chest and a finger device to measure his vitals. About fifteen minutes later, Diego, part of the magic trio of friends, arrived and without waiting for a second he said:
“Stay alive, you asshole, I left my girlfriend at home as soon as Jay called me. Do you know what I was doing, twat? French kissing my Laura and the way it was going I would have lost mine and hers virginity a few times by now.”
He stopped talking as he noticed that there were two moms in the room, and added:
“Aaaaaand, scene. Was that believable? I am rehearsing for a school play…”
“Well, the thought of you losing your virginity certainly seems like a work of fiction,” Said Jayden.
To what, Ben added: “If I wasn’t sick, I would definitely feel terrible by now.”
Around half an hour passed from Diego’s entrance, a doctor came into the room and kicked everyone out, in a nice but strong manner.
“So, can I speak frankly?”
“Please do.” Answered Ben
“You have a rare form of Lung cancer.”
At this point, Ben’s mom began to cry, and every one knows there is hardly anything more scary than a crying mother. The doctor continued while resting his right hand on Claudia’s shoulder:
“I read in your file that you are not a smoker of any kind, Not even e-cigs?”
Tried once and that was enough to learn that nicotine is my enemy. My body is not prepared for such a thing. But doctor, tell me how in the world did I got Lung cancer. How the fuck fuck fuck did we get this?
The doctor looked at Claudia and asked if there were any cases of cancer in the family, and she added: “No… one uncle, a distant one, had skin cancer, but he is alright now.”
“Well, sometimes… it’s hard to say this, of course, but sometimes… Sometimes it’s just bad luck. And I know this sucks, but we have one of the best teams in the country here, I would like to star treatment this week, so we can try to beat this asap.”
Ben appreciated the use of ‘suck’ and the sincerity, but at that moment he spaced out. The sound in the room grew silent, and while his mom spoke to the doctor for the next twenty minutes, he registered nothing. He just wanted to see his friends, leave the hospital and spend the day with them, like they always did, watching a movie and playing Magic the Gathering or laughing while watching TikTok videos. Just that. A normal day.
After the doctor said his goodbyes, Lara and the boys came into the room, not knowing yet the shitstorm that the doctor had unleashed. She went straight to my mother, and Jay and Diego tried to figure out why both moms were crying.
“What do you think of skipping school to play Magic? Ouch, almost forgot, just one little thing, I will be going bald for a while…”
They didn’t have to be asked twice. Ben needed them, and that was all that mattered now.
