Ack! I realized I didn’t reply to LadyLight0105’s review and it made me feel all guiltyyy. Q_Q Good news is that it made me start this chapter on time so it will probably be more formulated… /crickets chirp

Good out of bad, right? 8D I will be sure to reply to reviews at the end of this chapter. /cowers low
Disclaimer: I-I d-don’t o-own P-p-prince of T-t-t-tennis. Don’t hurt me. /runs

 

Diagnosis, Treatment, and Rehabilitation  Chapter 4                By Karina Eide

 

End of the Road

 

 

My whole world is the pain inside me
The best I can do is just get through the day
When life before is only a memory
I'll wonder why God lets me walk through this place

-Beauty from Pain by Superchick

 

They said the prognosis for him was good. They said that 80% of the people diagnosed have a complete recovery within a year. Yet why was he still like this? He was strapped to a bed on life support with no end in sight. Yukimura Momo was not happy with this situation, not happy at all. She was a successful business person and knew well enough about how the real world worked.

If a person was bad at their job they were fired. If there was someone better in the business you seek them out. The medical world was no different. These doctors screwed up with her son for the past two years and she was not going to let it go on for a moment longer. She whipped away the tears on her face and marched out the hospital, intent on wreaking havoc.

 

She climbed into her car and quickly pulled out her cellphone. A woman with a mission is hard to stop; a woman with a mission and a cellphone on the other hand is impossible to stop. She stared at the blank screen for a moment before flying into action. She dialed a quick series of numbers before lifting the electronic to her ear. “Connect me to Matsuda Hiro-sensei of cardiac surgery.”

 

“Please hold.” Momo heard the familiar click as she was put on hold and subject to the horrendous thing they called music. She stared at the phone with mild disgust until she heard the sound of human life coming through the cell. “Hello, this is Matsuda-san. Who is this?”

She almost sighed at relief knowing that the torture was over. “Hello Matsuda-sensei. It’s Momo-chan, remember?” She laughed at bit in memory of her school colleague. She was sure he was as short as ever with those terrifying glasses of his. He was a true medicinal terror in his own time. Her mind rested briefly over the fact that her laugh was probably the first in a good long while.

 

“Ahh, Momo-chan! It’s great to hear from you! Though I do suppose if you are calling by my office phone something has happened, hm?

 

Ack!” The sound of collapsing stacks of paper filled the phone. It was worrying what Momo was going to ask Matsuda to do, but he really was not helping the situation. Was his coordination honestly as good as everyone proclaimed him to be?

 

When the rustling of paper ended over the line Momo took it as her cue to continue. “You know of my son, Seiichi, right Matsuda-sensei?” She paused briefly to recollect her thoughts before saying, “I need your professional opinion on him. He’s just… He has acute panautonomic neuropathy and I don’t know what to do. He’s been stuck in that blasted hospital for two years now and the doctors keep on telling me that there is nothing else to do. I know that’s not true, dangit!”

 

She gripped the phone tightly to her ear as she spoke. It always hurt to think about her son and the people that were so willing to leave him to die. She just couldn’t let that happen to him. She knew Matsuda was the head of the Cardio-Thoracic Surgery Association. If anyone knew what to do; it would be him. She bit her lip as she heard Matsuda whisper calming words to her. “How about I meet you somewhere and we can talk about it in person? It sounds like there’s a lot to say. You know that I’ll always be there to help, Momo-chan.”

 

“Arigatou, Matsuda-sensei. Arigatou.” Perhaps there would be hope for her son yet. “Would noontime at the coffee shop down in Tokyo Village work for you? Tomorrow I mean…”

 

“Eh? Sure, Momo-chan. I’ll have Riku-san reschedule tomorrow for me.” She smiled as she heard the muffled argument between the surgeon and his secretary. “Thank you…”

 

- Keep holding on, never letting go-

 

Time seemed to pass so slowly sometimes. The moment it seems to pass slowest is when you want it to go quickly. Time just didn’t seem to realize the inner conflicts it was sparking because of its pace. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted. She knew she either wanted time to speed up and get everything over with or she wanted time to halt and make the surgery never come.

 

Sakuno found herself staring at the ceiling often these days. It wasn’t that she was really bored, but she couldn’t say that she knew what to do with herself. Sure, she was able to force herself to do her work, but then what? She broke contact from the freshman quartet when she left for Rikkaidai and her quiet personality wasn’t exactly conductive to making new friends. Even if she did have people to talk to, Sakuno wasn’t sure she’d contact them.

 

Everything around her felt as if it was in a haze. Running after being zapped with a stun gun would probably be easier than thinking at that moment. She cringed as she heard her cell phone ring from its place on the bed. She mindlessly patted around the bed until she finally found the electronic. She flipped open the cover and spoke, “Hello?”

 

“Nya! She’s there! Hurray!” Sakuno practically jumped when she heard the voice. What made it worse was that she could have sworn she heard the sound of falling books in the background. “Eiji-sempai? How did you get this number?” It had only been a few months since she had last seen the boy, but she could already tell he had changed. His voice was deeper, but it still retained that springing quality she had always appreciated.

 

“Ryuuzaki-sensei called me to the back of the clubhouse after school, nya! She finally gave me your number and said that I should call you! She also said not to tell any of the other regulars I have your number and I’ll be sure to do that, nya!” Sakuno giggled at the antics of her sempai. She did miss Eiji over the past few months and was certainly glad that she was able to talk to him. It definitely explained the skittish way her grandmother had talked to her earlier that day.

 

Her brown eyes softened as she clung to the phone. “Say, Sakuno-chan. Why’d you transfer out?” She frowned slightly as he asked this and tried to formulate what on earth she could say. Eiji was not renowned for being able to keep secrets, but lying to him would be different than just leaving people in the dark.

 

She had read a book that said something along the lines of “keeping things pent up causes stress and depression”. So would it be better to have someone to talk to? Her mind briefly remembered the gray haired Rikkaidai regular she had brushed by just two hours ago. She sighed at the thought and looked at the phone before speaking once more, “It’s complicated.”

 

She paused at the silence from the talkative neko until she finally heard, “NYA! That was cool, Sakuno-chan! Are you a spy? Spies always say that it’s complicated!” Needless to say, Sakuno was concerned for her excitable companion. How was she going to explain her way out of this one?

 

“Eiji-sempai, I’m not a spy. Um… Can we meet sometime? It’s easier to talk in person than over the phone.”

 

- We're not far from the end of the road-

 

“Momo-chan!” The bluenette froze for a moment at the familiar voice. Matsuda really hadn’t changed a bit since she had last seen him. She strolled over to the booth and slid across from the black haired doctor. “Heh… It’s been awhile hasn’t it? I wish I could have seen you under better circumstances.”

 

Momo nodded politely in agreement. “I’m glad you came to hear me out though, sensei. I didn’t know what else to do from this point.” She smiled weakly and looked up at the blocky glassed man. “I know you’re busy so I’ll get straight to the point.”

 

She took in a deep breath before continuing, “Seiichi has previously had Guillian Barre though it was of a weaker and more common variety. We used a surgical cure, but then he developed complications… Namely the pneumothorax and the swine flu of 2009. He relapsed into acute panautonomic neuropathy and has been in the hospital for the past two years. He’s taken nearly a dozen experimental drugs and physical therapy has failed to help him at all. All normal cures seem to have failed and the doctors aren’t willing to try anything else. Akihiro-sensei told me yesterday that essentially my son will be dead within a few months.”

 

She looked at Matsuda solemnly, “I know of the research you’ve been doing, sensei. Do you think the new variant surgery would work for Seiichi?” Matsuda leaned his head on his fists as he listened to her talk. He sucked in all of the information and quickly began processing what could be done for the boy. It was true that he had recently developed a surgical procedure to “edit” nerve function.

 

He had originally trained as a cardiac surgeon, but his wife was a neurosurgeon and a good one of her own right. He had seen new technology develop over time which could potentially change the formatting of the nerve cells in the brain. “Momo-chan. You have to realize that the surgery is new. We can’t say that anything will work. The brain is a very delicate thing and that is why it is hard to develop new technology for it. Would you be willing to risk your son on something like this?”

 

Momo almost scoffed at the way he was talking. “Matsuda-sensei, they gave my son a few months at best. You’d be giving him a chance and either he can lay down and die or fight to try and get better. I’m not going to stop and just let him leave this world without a fight.”

 

“That’s my Momo-chan.”

 

LadyLight0105: Sorry for replying latee. D8 And it seems like NiouxSakuno is really popular! He is set up in an easier situation to pair up with Sakuno. It looks like I might go with him. xD And thanks for the compliment.=D

Zemmno: I totally agree with you there. My Mom social networks with a lot of the cancer families and I hear a lot about who she meets. Since she’s a doctor she’s really helped families push forward with their treatment when doctors say to give up. It drives me nuts when people give in.

Aquamarine Lacus: Heyy, Raku~ And I’m doing well. xD I’m only on neopets and I think that’s where I’ll stay for awhile. It’s just relaxed and chat friendly on there~ How bout you?

paranoia syndrome: Aww, thankies! I’m just hoping all my doctor OCs wont confuse everyone. xD I don’t think there were any doctors set up in canon though. ;3;

GethinPathIsolator: I totally agree with you about strength. : ( Being stuck in an inpatient facility is really the pits. It’s worse if you’re immobile and it’s awful how sometimes they don’t even bother painting the walls. And I’m glad you like the story! : D

Emumoon, GethinPathIsolator, kaykay692, paranoia syndrome, thank you for alerting DTR! ;D I’m shocked at how well this story has been received. /sniffles
I’m so proud. You guys almost gave me a heart attack when I woke up this morning and I saw I had 150 more views than when I went to bed. xDD Fun stuff. I’ll talk to you all soon!