The Fighter - Say Hello to Kareivis

The sun was shining bright and a slightly cool and welcome breeze was swooshing across the window as Kristine looked out through it. A perfect day for a chemotherapy ,she thought to herself. It had been six weeks since Kristine was diagnosed with a rare case of leukaemia. And today was her second session of chemo.

Kristine was just a regular, always up for an adventure kinda fifteen year old despite being diagnosed with cancer. She had been thinking about camping out with two of her closest friends Ashley and Aaron. The three of them were neighbors and grew up together. Aaron and Ashley were twins. Kristine smiled as she thought about how much they fought over the silliest little things but then as the car came to a stop, her smile faded away.

They, as in she and her mom entered the gates of the hospital together and headed to the room. And as she got ready to carry out the procedure she thought to herself, Here we go again. It was painful but she couldn’t care less as she thought of all the amazing people and moments in her life. When she was diagnosed with cancer, her heart skipped a beat like it would for any other person to hear a news like that, and this one question kept echoing in her mind 'God, why me?' She started to loose hope and felt really miserable. She started to think that God had left her side. It wasn’t until her first session of chemotherapy, under the intense feeling of nausea and pain did she feel the presence of God. Almost as if He was right by her side and giving her a huge bear hug that she realized, she was not forsaken by Him. In fact, she was chosen by Him to be a witness of how to be happy when thing’s don’t turn out the way you expect them to.

Later that week, Aaron and Ashley came to visit her. They were as close as brother and sisters. Kristine felt sad and told them that they shouldn’t have canceled their plans of camping out. She told them that she’d be fine and wanted them to go have fun. 'Are you kidding me!', said Ashley, 'Without you packing my bag would be the bare minimum I could do' .

Kristine laughed, but then said that she didn’t want them to not have fun just because she was sick.' But you’re the reason we go on such hair raising trips', said Aaron' And for that matter who said you can’t go, I mean you look fine to me, you could do ten push-ups now I betcha' . 'Yeah well I can do it now, but probably not once I’m done with another chemo', she sighed.

'So when is your next chemo?'…asked Ashley,' would it be cool if I came along?' 'After nine days', said Kristine 'And yeah it wouldn’t be cool if you come along… it would be awesome', she told her.

'Kristine come on dinner is ready', called out her mom. The three of them went down and were rather in for a surprise. On the table was a luscious looking Golden Retriever. Kristine had always wanted a dog and seeing one in front of her, in her house, sitting on top of the table, a tiny little dog, forced tears in her eyes. She flopped down on the chair and swooped the little thing off the table and into her arms. Burying her face into his soft fur she said, 'Thank you so so much mom and dad…what should we name him?'

'Well I thought we should name him Kareivis', said her dad. 'But what does Kareivis mean?', she asked. 'Kareivis means fighter in Latvian which you are my dear child' . 'Aww thanks Dad' said Kristene…'time for a family hug'.

'Now let’s get to dinner, really I’m starving', said her mom It was a lovely dinner bread, ham, cream, tomatoes, crisp lettuce. After dinner Ashley and Aaron bid goodbye and headed home.

The whole while Kristene had Kareivis on her lap. Before hitting the bed they all had their usual family prayer. It was almost ten when Kristene was about to snooze that Kareivis crawled onto her bed and under the covers and gave her a lick and then settled down beside her, breathing with content. Kristene closed her eyes, cuddled Kareivis tight and said, 'Thank you God'.

The next morning Kristene was woken up by Kareivis licking her face. She went to her calendar to check the day, just a week left to start school, well at least for the rest of the students she thought to herself. She went to her closet and took out her uniform, red tie, checked skirt, white shirt. 'Oh! When will I get to wear these uniforms again?', she said to herself.

'You know staring at those uniforms won’t make you wear them'. 'Oh ! Ashley, uhmm…How long have you been standing there?….probably long enough I guess' said Kristene. 'Oh! I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt, you may carry on expressing your feelings', said Ashley with a little French-ish and Spanish-ish accent and laughed. Then as Karevis came to greet her she said, 'Hey! Karevis how are ya doing buddy'.

They both shared a quick hug and went down to take Karevis for a walk. 'So seems like you’ll be missing school for a while', said Ashley. ‘Yeah, I will be', said Kristene ; 'But on the bright side no homework or  exam pressure right'. They walked about Half a mile and then started to go home.