Hazel helps Isaac sit down in a chair and then goes up to make her own eulogy. Isaac gives a bittersweet eulogy about how talkative, pretentious, and vain Augustus is, saying that even if they make robot eyes in the future he wouldn’t want to see a world without Gus. Augustus fills her in that he has arranged this pre-funeral since he, he says somewhat jokingly, may not be able to attend as a ghost. When Hazel arrives at the Support Group room in the church she finds Augustus sitting in a wheelchair and Isaac standing at the lectern about to speak. She goes to her room to write her eulogy for Gus and when she comes out to leave and her father tells her she can’t leave without permission she retorts that she’ll be home every night starting very soon which causes them to let her go. Hazel’s parents almost don’t let her go, arguing that they felt like they never saw her anymore, and getting angry when she spoke briskly back at them. Hazel had taken the day off from visiting Augustus, now sometime between a month and two after their trip to Amsterdam, but gets a call from Augustus asking her to meet him that night at the church where Support Group is held with a eulogy. The problem, she explains, is that there is no way to know if a day is a good day or your Last Good Day until there are no good days after it. She explains that the "Last Good Day" is the concept that just before dying, people will have a day in which they feel emotionally and even physically back to their old selves. Hazel tells the reader, "that was the last good day I had with Gus until the Last Good Day" (p.252). Gus's dad, understanding how helpful this act of levity is in helping Augustus retain a feeling of normalcy and personhood, thanks Hazel. They take Gus outside and Hazel attempts to temper the well-meaning talk of the sisters and husbands with the classic witty banter they engage in in public, making light of cancer and its effects on them and Isaac. Hazel meets these children who seem to have a tenuous grasp on Gus's condition and his sisters who speak to him in strange babying voices. His sisters come to stay with their husbands and children. Hazel continues seeing Gus every day as he comes home from the hospital visit after the gas station incident and begins taking more and more medication, staying in bed and feeling a complete lack of dignity. She recites another poem for him and when it ends too soon she continues it with her own words, making the poem about their lives and thoughts. Hazel grabs him and attempts to comfort him with reality, telling him that there are no bad guys in life, not even cancer. While they wait, Gus cries, hitting the steering wheel and moaning that he is disgusted with himself. Hazel apologizes to him and then calls 911. He confesses that he went out to buy a pack of cigarettes, more to prove he can do something for himself than anything else. Hazel leaves for him, jotting a note to her parents, and when she pulls up she finds him covered in vomit, hands pressed to his red, infected-looking stomach where his G-tube attaches. Gus is stranded at a gas station he snuck out to and did something wrong with his G-tube. She is terrified that it will be that he has died but when she answers it's his voice. Sometime in the next few days, Hazel gets a call from Augustus in the middle of the night. This angers Hazel and she tells him that she feels like she can never be enough for him, bluntly adding that he is never going to accomplish those crazy things he wants to be remembered for. After a length of awkwardness, Gus brings up the fact that he always wanted to have a special obituary in the newspapers when he died. Though Hazel says it's no big deal, both can tell that something is different. They play video games together, neither paying much attention, until Gus brings up having wet the bed. Hazel retreats upstairs, letting his parents deal with the mess, and only comes back downstairs when he's waking up. On a morning about a month after they return from Amsterdam, Hazel arrives at Gus's house to find him still in bed, mumbling and having wet himself in the night. They lie in bed together and play video games until nighttime, at which time Hazel goes home to return the next afternoon. Gus tells Hazel that he is trying to write her a sequel to An Imperial Affliction, but most of his days and nights are devoted to eating (often throwing up his food) and sleeping. In Chapter 16, Hazel gives the reader a run-down of "a typical day with late-stage Gus" (p.234).
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