Blink.

“Fuck, she’s vomited everywhere.”

“Hello? Ambulance, please, it’s my daughter. Something’s wrong. You have to hurry.”

“I just fucking stood in it. Oh God, I’m going to be sick.”

“Shut up, Amanda!”

“Sorry! Sorry. I’m just scared OK? Is she…dying?”

“I don’t know. How should I know?”

“Number 1156, the one with the blue letterbox. There’s a driveway down to the house. Hurry.”

“She doesn’t look good.”

“No shit.”

“Ava?”

Hands brushing my hair from my face. “That’s it, girl, just keep breathing. Help is coming.”

“Stay with us, Ava. Please.”

Blink.

I know that noise. That steady hiss and click. I’ve heard it enough times. Oxygen. Air. Life. I open my eyes, but everything is blurry. There’s a metallic scraping noise, like a chair being pushed back.

“She’s awake. Get her mother, quick. She just ducked out to stretch her legs in the corridor. Ava?”

My father’s shape swims into view, looming. I can’t focus on him, like he’s inside one of those kaleidoscope toys. Changing colors, shapes. Changing faces.

“You’re in hospital, love. Don’t try to talk; you’re all hooked up to the machine.”

I close my eyes.

The slapping sound of my mother’s shoes on the linoleum, her panting.

“Is she conscious?”

“She was. For a moment, she looked right at me.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, love.”

“It’s OK. She needs her sleep. She’ll wake up again soon.”

Blink.

Hiss, click. I don’t like the feel of the oxygen being pushed into my nose so I reach up, fumbling, and pull it out.

“Oh, no you don’t, miss.” My mother’s firm voice. “That stays in until the doctor says otherwise, understood?” The straps are hooked behind my ears again, the plastic tubes reinserted into my nostrils.

“Pretty sure you don’t work here,” I mumble weakly.

“I don’t care,” my mother says. “You’ve given me enough of a scare already. We’re following the doctor’s instructions.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she sighs. “I knew something wasn’t right. I should have called the doctor.”

“What’s wrong with me? Apart from the obvious.”

She looks at Dad. “What did he say it was called, again?”

“Hypercalcemia. You have too much calcium in your blood.” He clears his throat. “When the cancer spread to your bones it caused them to slowly break apart, releasing calcium into your blood.”

“Great. This cancer thing just keeps on giving, doesn’t it.” I can’t help the bitterness that seeps through my voice. Sometimes you can only be positive for so long before it slips.

Mum smiles weakly and reaches up to gently brush the hair off my forehead.

“So what do we do?” I ask, and watch as they exchange a look. I know that look. It’s the look people have when they have bad news to impart. “Tell me.”

“There is no fixing it,” my father says resignedly. “All they can do is treat the symptoms.”

I rub my eyes, wishing I could go to sleep and wake up and have all this be nothing but a bad dream. Have I not been through enough?