Through The Picture Photography

One of the "worser" kids he remembers strongly was his roommate. Back then, Scott explained, kids weren't separated by age or type or severity of illness in the hospital and so when he was 7, having his first surgery, he shared a room with an approx. 13-year-old boy named Michael with terminal cancer. "He was my friend," he said simply, and then smiled. "I remember he was fun." He described a boy who would play with him during the day, a friend, but more importantly, he remembered how Michael took care of him. "I still remember, there were dreams I had in the hospital for the first surgery, and screaming in them....and he'd be up with me. I'd wake up and he was talking to me." He continued, and said that his parents worried that Michael needed the rest, and ended up suggesting that Michael move for his own good. Michael refused. “It was making him better to take care of me," Scott finally said, tears coming at the memory of a friend. "I hate when it happens to kids because kids don't have a chance. You haven't started anything. He was 13 years old. But, who thinks of someone else like that[, like Michael thought of me]?" Memories of others like Michael formed him, he said, and then returned to a discussion of his own hidden problems.