MARLOWE, ANNABEL L.

Annabel was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 8th grade.

She has a hard time remembering everything that happened during those first six months. It was a lot of crying and friends and relatives offering support. Annabel just knew her knee hurt when she tried to go to gymnastics lessons. And then she couldn't go anymore. And she watched her team get an honorable mention at states without her.

Things never happen as quick as you see them go in tv and movies. Before she got much treatment there was a lot of arguing. With past family experience in mind, they opted not to go for chemotherapy. Which left only limb-salvage and amputation above the knee as options. There was a lot more crying. Annabel wanted to keep her leg. Her parents cried more and told her she could. So in 9th grade, she went in for surgery and it was called a success. She regained use of her left leg within the year and things started to go back to normal.

In 11th grade she had a recurrence. Limb-salvage surgery was tried again, but mid-way through it became clear amputation was the only option. There was more crying, mostly from Annabel.

She remembered the time after the amputation well. She remembered looking down and always being surprised at how abnormal it was, at how people looked at her the same way she looked at "cripples" before. She could hear girls like her whisper to their friends, who looked just like her friends, when she walked by. She hated them and she hated herself.

As part of rehabilitation, for both Annabel and her parents, the family moved to Nova Athenis after Annabel graduation. She refused to walk at the ceremony. She picked up the diploma quietly after school hours. Nova Athenis would be Annabel's dream, if she hadn't lost interest in everything in life. Her days are spent locked in her room, fiddling with one thing or another, or on the computer late into the night, or just sleeping days away. She attends the local university for a subject she's barely interested in and sometimes just doesn't get up to leave for class. Her parents do their best to urge her out of the house, to celebrate the life she was granted with a 5-year prognosis: the best a patient can hope for. That's five year and probably many more.

But Annabel is rather stuck in her own reality of her life and herself becoming something she can't bring herself not to hate.


alias: wistie
last character: sajjad muhyee
faceclaim: [b][i]VOCALOID, ia,[/i][/b] Annabel marlowe