The drip of my IV bag flowed like the solemn tick of a clock on the amount of time i had left. The disease had taken everything from me, my ability to walk, by ability to feel, and nearly my ability to speak. Though my ability to feel the white bedsheets on my skin or the bandages strewn acrost my arms had waned the pain that was present in every part of my body continued.
The room the doctors had put me in was white, sterile, and clean. As if i was a cell in a Petri dish. I had no visitors aside from the occasional hospital staff bringing me medication or food, most of my family had either moved away or didn't talk to me anymore
A knock on the door sounded and i painfully turned up my head to see who it was through my fading brown hair. It was Doctor Richardson the main provider for my treatment. He always had something positive to say, even on the worst of days
He raked a hand through his slicked back brown hair as he said, "Heyyyy Janey, How're we feeling today?" He asked softly, as if I were a child who needed soothing. I let out a raspy cough to clear my throat as I replied, "good, h-how a-bout you?"
"I'm doing alright, I'm certain you've heard from Millie about my engagement to Doctor Estelle." He laughed an exasperated laugh. "That woman can never keep a secret." He said as he rubbed the back of his head. I weakly laughed at his dotting antics, the highlight of an otherwise dreadful day.
"You know Doctor Estelle pretty well, and while I probably shouldn't show you this." He reached into his pocket and rummaged around till he pulled out a small box. He tentatively opened like it contained some sort of dangerous item but after taking the top off I could see it contained a rather large diamond wedding ring.
Either out of pure reflex or happiness the sight of the diamond made me smile and nod. I weakly moved my hand into a thumbs up sign.
Doctor Richardson put the large diamond ring back under the cover and placed it back into his pocket "This thing costed me an arm and a leg, so I'm hoping she'll like it."
I nodded as hard as I could hoping to reassure him as much as i could. From what I had gathered Doctor Richardson didn't really love her, at least not originally. Estelle was his boss and she had fallen for him in some form of unrequited love. This resulted in Richardson almost being cut from the hospital all together until he started reciprocating her approaches.
The very thought of someone's love being wrestled out of them like that made me clench my fists so hard my arm began to shake. Richardson was immediately to my bedside as soon he noticed the shaking.
"The disease might be causing onset tremors in your limbs, how long have you been shaking like this?" He said as he crouched down and held out a hand for one of my weak spindly arms. I waved his hand away not wanting him to worry about me over nothing.
"All in all you've been handling treatment like a champ, I want you to know we're all proud of you Janey." I nodded and smiled in a show of thanks. Richardson stood back up and walked over to the counter in the room and grabbed his clip board. He never came to see me for nothing so this would be important.
"We've gotten our hands on a new experimental drug therapy that could really help you." Said the doctor whilst looking over his clipboard notes as if deciphering ancient texts. "It should reverse the loss of feeling and help with the coughing." He raked his other hand through his hair in a show of mounting stress.
It'd been months since I was last able to walk unassisted, to be able to go outside and feel the sun on my skin, or the fresh air in my lungs would be a miracle. Richardson continued, "if you'd want to try the treatment I'll get the paperwork started." I nodded my head as viciously as I could in my condition.
"Alright sounds good, this medication is still in it's testing phase so we don't have much...since you've been here the longest you're the first out of two on the waiting list." Richardson began walking away from me, I grabbed his lab coat and he turned to face me.
"w-who...else" I asked him, if there was someone else with this disease I knew they couldn't tell me but I had to know.
"C'mon Janey, you know i can't tell you that." he said as he nervously rubbed the back of his brown haired head. "It would go against the rules if I gave out patient information like that y'know."
My grip on his lab coat only tightened, taking all of my strength just to keep him her with this pitiful display of need.
"Tell...me!" It was the first time I'd been able to raise my voice in months, I could feel blood shoot from the back of my throat as i suppressed my cough as to not cough onto Doctor Richardson. He looked into my eyes and we locked eye contact, but not as patient and doctor, but as a woman with a dying wish and a man who could honor it.
"Fine, fine...I'll tell you..." He said lightly swatting my hand away from his coat and placing it back onto the bed. He nervously looked back at the door to make sure none of his coworkers would be entering has he broke one of the hospitals major rules about information breaches.
"Her name is Olivia, I can't give you a last name but she's really sick." He leaned against my bed and crossed his arms as he continued. "She's in an even worse state than you are no offense. I wish we had enough for both of you but like I said this drug is relatively new and we only have a small selection of it."
"Give...it to her" I said swallowing the blood that'd sprung from all of the talking that was no doubt no good for my condition.
"What are you talking about? The medicine?!" Richardson shot off the bed and turned to face me now, a look of shock acrost his face.
I nodded my head for the final time as i laid back onto my risen back bed, all my strength gone from the exchange.
"Jane, if you do this I don't know when we'll have more of the medicine...you might..." He squeezed his fist at his side hard enough that his knuckles went flush with white.
I waved my hand in front of my face, as a way to wave away all the emotions Doctor Richardson was holding onto for me, for Olivia, and for himself. All I needed him to do was to make sure she got the medication I don't care what happens to me.
"Thank you Jane, I'm telling you this from the family who'll never know what you sacrificed for their little girl, thank you..."
I put up a solemn thumbs up as I looked to the clock and saw it was 2:45. Doctor Richardson always administered medicine around 3:00 so she'd be getting the medication soon and a smile spread across my face.
"I've got to do my rounds soon, I'll see you afterwards to celebrate with Jell-O afterwards?" I gave a small weak thumbs up to the Doctors words as he walked out and closed the door.
As the door closed I could feel the weakness of sleep overtake me and I fell into deep slumber. In my dreams I always felt free, I could walk around, and I could live freely.
This dream however was quite different than what I was used to. I was on some sort of glowing white platform and there was only darkness all around me, there was a lone woman in a white dress in a large, ornate throne like chair in the middle of it. I walked up to her to ask where I was.
"Excuse me? Could you tell me what this place is?" I tapped a foot onto the glowing platform to try and see what it was made of. To my surprise the platform had no feeling at all, it was as if we were standing on pure light.
The white clad woman just stared at me, head in her hand as if she was appraising me like some sort of stone or unknown creature. A long moment passed where neither of us said anything till finally she stood up and walked over to me.
"Jane Sanders?" she said in a commanding tone, well as commanding as a question could be.
"Yes?" I replied instantly
"You have died." She said in a matter of fact tone.
"What?!"