A Bright and Beautiful, Sunny Day

Chapter 2

O.K. The info I got here is from “They Encyclopedia of Common Diseases”. I think I likeN beN better than FFN. It tells me how many people have read it, not just reviewed. And in less than ten minutes I got six hits and one review! I was so happy! And it was from one of my favorite authors too. Thanks Altar. I’m brainstorming for ideas for your wishlist. Hopefully I’ll have something for Christmas. No promises though.


After the vomiting episode, Kuwabara had woken long enough to yell at everyone that he didn’t need to go to the hospital.
“Dammit Urameshi, I’m fine! I’m not feeling sick anymore so it was probably just something I ate.” He muttered under his breath, “probably Shizuru’s hamburgers. She never cooks them long enough.”

SLAP!

“What was that abut my cooking baby bro?”
Kuwabara laughed nervously, sporting a nice red handprint on his cheek. “Nothing Sis! Nothings wrong with it. It’s great!”

Hiei smirked at him.

Yukina went up to Kuwabara and his his forehead. “Kazuma you still have a fever and you’re looking very pale and tired. And while you did take a large plateful of food, you hardly ate any of it.”
You do appear to have lost some weight Kuwabara,” Kurama added “At tery ery least you should set up an appointment.”
“Will that get you guys to leave me alone?”
“For a while anyway.”
Kuwabara sighed. “Fine.” He began to get up from the couch; “I’ll go call now.”
He rose and was suddenly very dizzy. He raised a hand to his head "oh boy” and promptly passed out. Kurama and Yusuke caught him.
Genkai sighed. “Again, to the hospital we go.”


By the time they got there Kuwabara had come to and was loudly complaining about being brought to the hospital. But he still allowed the doctors to draw his blood for tests and gave them a urine sample. “I hate peeing in the cup.”
Yusuke laughed at him. “I feel sorry for the people in the lab. Examining people’s piss and shit for a living? That’s g be be the worst job in the world.”
They waited half an hour for the blood results to come back and then the doctors wanted to take some x-rays of Kuwabara’s back.
“We just want to make sure of something before we begin treating him.” The doctor said after seeing the groups questioning faces. Another half hour later and the doctor called Shizuru into the room where Kuwabara was napping. Again. He didn’t look like he was bearing good news.
“Damn.” Said Yusuke, plopping back down into his seat. “What could that stupid doc have to say that he can’t tell us?”
‘I hate not knowing what’s going. Especially when it concerns my best friend.’
“It’s just normal procedure.” Said Kurama not looking up from his magazine. “Family has to be told before anyone else.”
“Right. I forgot your moms a nurse. You probably know all about now these places work. So is it ’procedure’ to always take x-rays just because a person says he has pain there?” Yusuke asked, only slightly sarcastic.
“No.”

They waited in silence for fifteen minutes then Dr. Himura came back out, looking solemn.
Yusuke glared at him. He really didn’t like that look. “So can you tell us what’s wrong with him now?” he demanded.
“He’s being admitted.”
Yusuke leapt up from the chair. “What? Why?”
“ His blood results came back and showed a high accumulation of white blood cells and granuloctyes….”
“What does that mean?” Yusuke interrupted.
“Well it could’ve mea few few things. That’s why we did the x-rays of his spine and we found….”
“Oh no…” said Kurama, horror on his face “he has leukemia?”
“WHAT?”
Dr. Himura nodded grimly. “Yes. I’m afraid he does.”
“Oh God…” Yusuke sank back into his chair numb. ‘Leukemia? But isn’t that a deadly disease? But he’s always been perfectly healthy. I dont even remember him ever having a cold! How can he have leukemia?’
“What is being done for him Dr.?” Kurama asked. Yusuke looked up at him in a daze.
Dr. Himura sighed, “Well, he has chronic leukemia which is fortunately not nearly as bad as acute leukemia. Symptoms usually don’t show up till near the end. The only reason we caught it this early was because it has weakened his immune system and he got a virus. That caused the fever and the vomiting. We’ve got him on an I.V. right now and were giving him some antibiotics. But his spleen is pretty badly infected and if the swelling doesn’t go down we’ll have to do a splenectomy.”
“ A what?”
“We’ll have to remove his spleen. “
“Oh shit.” Yusuke was now pale and slightly shaking. This wasn’t sounding good at all. Kurama was doing a little better. He wasn’t shaking anyway but he was just as pale as the boy next to him.
Oh so quietly, barely above a whisper, the fox asked, “What is his life expectancy?”
“Life expectancy?” Yusuke asked.
“Without treatment, he probably has just over a year left. It seems he has the disease for some time now. He’s just now started symptoms. His spleen is already infected and its beginning to spread to his liver.”
“Wait, you mean he’s dying?” Yusuke shouted. He was scared now. Not just nervous but really scared and slightly panicking. “No! He cant be dying, he’s only 23 years old! You cant just write him off like that dammit! Give him some drugs or something, surely you people have got something to make him better!”
“Sir, leukemia is a very serious disease. We have treatments that will help him but no cure has been discovered.”
“ So you’re just going to give up on him?”
“Mr. Urameshi, I am not going to do any such thing. We have admitted him into our care and have already begun treatment. However you need to understand that this sis a very difficult and delicate procedure. We have to be very careful with the treatments we give him.”
“Difficult how?”
“The treatments can have very serious side effects which may take their toll on Kuwabara. They can wear away the lining of his stomach, they can damage the bone marrow, impair his bodies ability to fight bacteria and can cause hemorrhaging.”
“Which could kill him,” whispered Kurama. His head was spinning with all these terribly possibilities. If Kuwabara was to go untreated, he would die within the year. But at the same time, anything that they did to tr hel help him also ran the risk of infection and making his ailment even more severe. It seemed hopeless. What could they do?
Yusuke’s voice brought him out of his sulking. “How will cutting out his spleen help? Doesn’t he need that?”
“We may not need to. However if it becomes infected any worse than it already is than his spleen will only be causing him even more damage. It will be nothing but dead tissue and we cant afford to have that spread to his liver and kidneys.”
Yusuke was holding his head and rubbing his eyes in a weary shock. “Is there any chance that he’ll recover? Any at all?”
Dr. Himura looked at the stricken youth sympathetically. “Yes. But it’s very slim. I’m sorry.”