Analyzing Zach Beyer's 'When Tragedy Occurs'

Thatcher Berends
Eng-100
Professor G
Nov 12, 2012

When Tragedy Occurs

A fun, exciting life filled with a bunch of friends and family. That is exactly what Zach Beyer was experiencing during his freshmen year of college. While balancing his school work with finding time for friends and family was difficult even for Zach. During high school Zach had maintained a 4.0 grade point average while balancing both soccer and track during his senior year. He had another brother Nick, and a sister Mackenzie. His parents both married in there early 40’s. Life couldn’t be more perfect, having fun at college while maintaining good grades was a piece of cake for Zach. It wasn’t until
Physically, having to go through all that pain hurts the not only the person but the family as well. Zach overwhelmed by everything is unaware of how or if he can help his mother. Zach being a cousin of mine I asked him to describe what he was feeling on this certain day. He said, ‘That was the scariest day of my life. When I first got to the hospital I waited around for the doctors to finally give us some kind of information. After hearing that my mom had cancer was heart dropping. Being extremely sad by this bump in the road I tried to pull for my family in friends.” Zach shortly after figuring out more about Glioblastoma he realized how bad this cancer truly was. The doctor informed Zach that his mother would only have a year left. Shocked by this he was uncertain what the future would hold. At the age of 19 hearing this kid of new was extremely tough for Zach. Being hit with such news was hard. Since Karen was diagnosed during Christmas break Zach was forced into returning to college to start his new semester. During his time at college Karen underwent two surgeries’ to remove the softball size tumor in her brain. Safely
While at Mary Free Bed Karen was starting to walk again by herself and being able to function with limited help from others. While Karen was making good progress I asked Zach what he thought of how quickly she was being able to function shortly after the surgeries’. He said, “It’s quite remarkable that she’s making such a quick recovery. She can almost walk on her own now and that’s a huge step this soon.” Always staying positive was something that I learned from Zach, even though his mother had been diagnosed with the most severe cancer he constantly was bring up all of the good from this situation and never dwelling on the negative side. Spending a short time at Mary Free Bed Karen was released and was able to go home. At home is when problems start to occur again. Karen started to have seizures and wasn’t able to keep any food down. It wasn’t until a very serious seizure occurred that made everyone realize that things weren’t so good after all. During the seizure she lost all movement in her body and wasn’t responsive. The ambulance was called once more and she was first taken to Holland Hospital. At Holland Hospital she underwent a quick CAT scan before she was transferred to Spectrum. The CAT scan showed doctors that another