FOX, Fiona J

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full name Fiona January Fox date of birth 05.08.1993 home town London, England current city NYC, NY education Student at Parsons School of Design occupation Fashion design student ________________________________________ I was always the strong one; last to bicker, never complained about being sore, walked off all my injuries. And then cancer crept up, even then, I barely whined. I was walking home from school when I noticed two massive bruises, one on each leg. But I just noticed them, I wasn't concerned about them. I think I might have looked at my siblings, and made a joke about them being evidence of a night well had. But as the month rolled on, I started getting more bruises. Again.. not really thing anything of them, I was physical. On sports teams by day, and rolling around with my boyfriend by night. It's so ridiculously stupid, because all the signs were there, and I kept ignoring them. As well as the bruises, sometimes I'd get so dizzy I'd have to sit with my head between my legs. Or my breath would be ragged after walking up one flight of stairs. They were all there, I just didn't want to be that girl. I inevitably became that girl at a family smoke-up (which is like a family bbq, but take away the grill, and roll a blunt). Sitting around the campfire, I passed out. Completely cold. I was sitting there one minute, laughing along, and the next minute I was in the ER. And really, thank god for Ollie, because my hippie parents who have little belief in 'modern day medicine' would not have brought me to the hospital. I honestly thought it was from skipping meals. But a simple blood test confirmed I had acute myelogenous leukemia. Which explained symptoms.. and it was really like being hit with a truck. I went into treatment right away, which started with blood transfusions and platelets, and then into chemo. The first chemo wasn't good, I developed these strange lumps on me. They biopsied the first, and instead of healing, my arm swelled up from my wrist to my elbow.. luckily it healed, with the help of granulocytes. But the granulocytes caused a high fever, and lung complications, I spent 3 days in the ICU. Upon granulocytes, I discovered I also don't tolerate morphine or dilaudid. There are days that I don't remember, where I'd wake up with an oxygen mask, surrounded by a whole bunch of people. Eventually it was determined that my only hope for a cure was a marrow bone transplant. My boyfriend, Oliver, was miraculously a match. Out of all five of my siblings, Ollie was the one. And he hardly hesitated. He just came, got shots for a few days, and sat for four hours with tubes in his arms.. and he hates needles. After my transplant, I took anti-narcotics.. which turned out I also can't tolerate. I became massively paranoid of staff, and my family.. the only person I trusted was my boyfriend, and I just clung onto him. I would hallucinate that I was in a space ship, with sharks outside the window, and monkeys climbing all over, spiders crawling up and down my IV lines. So I got switched to oxycotin, and hallucinated puppies and kittens instead, which was nice. Cancer sucks. But you get used to it, and it became routine for almost a year.. you can adjust to anything, and when you face a situation, you can either laugh the whole time, or cry about it. I just chose to laugh. ________________________________________ This isn't A Walk to Remember, because I didn't die at the end. But Oliver Abbott wishes his life were a Nicolas Sparks film. I spent the majority of my child, and teenage years in love with Ollie. From the age of probably six, where he'd yank my ponytails and I'd pretend to hate it, but meanwhile I was practising my future signature 'Mrs. Fiona Abbott' in my journal. I'd shriek in delight when I touched him, while he'd run screaming around the yard claiming cooties. When we were thirteen, he invited me to a school dance. His mum drove us, and we walked hand in hand into the auditorium. An hour later, Olivier was dancing with Marcy Walsh. I didn't speak to him for three days. We were steady for two months when we were fourteen. Before tables turned and I got with Harrison Jackson, he had his revenge fuck of.. I don't even remember her name. Eventually we decided to scratch the title of boyfriend/girlfriend, and have an semi-open relationship. Where Mon-Fri we were to hold hands in school, 'act' like a couple, and then do what/whomever we wanted that evening. Fri-Sun we were each others. It went on like that, and sometimes I was jealous, naturally. I hated when people would mention Olivier fucking someone else, it was more something I liked to pretend didn't exist. I once thought our relationship worked that way, and that maybe we didn't think anything of each other, that our incompatibility was just that obvious. Until you know, cancer. He bucked up. Cancer survivors say things like, "oh, my friends and family were really there for me", "if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have gotten through", and "I had so much support!" I call horse shit.. not to be so mean, but that's dick sucking. Olivier was there. Every day, every treatment, every minute in that hospital. He was there to hold my hand, to make me laugh, and to donate his stem cells. I saved me, but he threw me the extinguisher to calm the flames. When I was bald, anorexicly thin, and the ugliest I've ever been, he asked me to marry him. He knelt down in that gross, unhappy hospital room and whipped out the most gorgeous sapphire ring. Of course I said yes, there was not reason to say no. I was the happiest girl, seventeen years old and looking at Vera Wang gowns, figuring out how I could possibly afford one.. we planned on a quick wedding. Pick a dress, get married as soon as I turned eighteen. It didn't happen that way, my cancer went into remission. My scans came up clean, I was out of that dangerous zone. And something changed in us both. I received a late acceptance into Parsons, got the clear to move to NYC with a recommendation of a doctor. Mrs. Fiona Abbott fell by the wayside, and I gave the ring back that summer.. I guess we got a little ahead of ourselves thinking about forever. And the I could spend my whole life with you lengthened significantly. ________________________________________ ________________________________________ PLAYLIST i followed fires , matthew & the atlas pompeii , bear's den vampire , black joe lewis pine for cedars , dan mangan the way we do it , jurassic 5 down in the valley , the head and the heart red heart , hey rosetta salinas , laura marling i'm on fire , bruce springsteen i don't love you , union duke ________________________________________ your name ciara play-by brooke perry your most recent work above