Callie, a shy 15-year-old girl, is admitted to Sea Pines (“a residential treatment facility”) after a school nurse discovers that she's been self-mutilating. At Sea Pines she meets six other girls who are dealing with austere problems of their own, which range from anorexia to substance abuse. Callie refuses to speak to anyone, but after a while, she realizes that she wants help and starts to talk...…
Hazel & Gus are wonderful characters that had a physical attraction that quickly turned into a strong friendship. Having experienced or in Hazels case still experiencing the hardships of a cancer diagnosis and not knowing when her illness will progress would be a very stressful way to live each day. From the book I believe they both are doing their best to deal with their diagnosis but wish for a healthier, normal life.…
Nicole won’t tell her mom what’s going on. She won’t tell her how she feels and what she’s going through. Her mom doesn’t try very hard to communicate with her about her cancer. “Nicki?” The voice traveled up the stairs. “What, mom?” She called over her shoulder. “What are you doing?” “I’m leaving for a while!” Before she could finish her escape to the back door, a jogging suite rounded the corner. “But, honey…” Nicole feels like she can’t talk to her mom about what’s going on. Her mom wouldn’t understand what she’s going to do and would just get mad at her. As a result she decides to do something that will help her coop with losing her hair.…
According to the National Cancer Institute, “In 2015, an estimated 1,658,370 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States” (“Cancer Statistics”). What if one of those cases was your mother? Husband? Grandson? What if more horrifically, it was all three? For Mary Kenyon, that devastating thought became a reality. In just three brief years, she lost her mother, husband, and grandson. All three of them battled cancer, and two of the three died from the disease. Through strength, resilience, and a whole lot of faith, Mary overcame grief and shows true heroism by inspiring people and helping them defeat the same obstacles she faced.…
John, Sally, and their daughter Mary came into therapy wanting to help deal with current issues relating to Mary’s depression and self-harm. They had discovered that Mary had been occasionally cutting herself as well as isolating herself in her room for long hours. Sally had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, which was successfully operated on, and was in remission. From an object relations perspective much of the family’s relationship and way of dealing, or in this case not dealing with Sally’s cancer, was facilitating Mary’s depression. Sally’s cancer had been minimized due to its highly operable nature. Both John and Sally explained to Mary that it was unnecessary to talk about the cancer as her mother had been “cured” already, ignoring the intense feelings of loss, sadness, and anger by all the family members before the positive news. Although this pattern and unconscious rule in their family where issues of intense emotional content were not to be discussed, this highly traumatic event appeared to be the breaking point for Mary.…
Did you know that over 40,000 children have to go through cancer treatments a year? Out of those 40,000, 12% of children with cancer will not make it. When a child is diagnosed with cancer, it affects many people who care about them and changes how they feel towards this child. This relates to Steven Alper, a character in the novel Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie, whose brother is diagnosed with leukemia. Throughout the novel, Steven’s feelings toward his brother, Jeffrey, change over the course of time that his brother has cancer. Jeffrey has to go through chemotherapy and is at CHOP at least once a week for his treatments. Steven’s mom is not home a lot because she is with Jeffrey and making sure he is okay, while his dad is working and worrying…
Though our whole family shared the burden of my mother’s anger, in my heart I suspected that part of it was my fault and my fault alone. Cancer is an obscenely expensive illness; I saw the bills, I heard their fights. There was no doubt that I was personally responsible for a great deal of my family’s money problems: ergo, I was responsible for my mother’s unhappy life…
Alesha Monk is 21 years of age; she is a Biology major studying at Winston Salem State to become a Pediatrician. When she comes home on her summer break, she would always try to volunteer at the Hospice Center in her hometown. There would be a conflict with her classes that she schedule at the local college which made it impossible for her to volunteer. Finally this summer it works for her to volunteer with no conflict in sight. For instance, Alesha was very adamant about working at a Hospice Center. It takes a special person to work at a facility for terminal ill people, because the goal in a hospice center is to make the patient as comfortable as possible for the remaining days on earth. For example, she will have to sit with the terminal ill patients that may have 8 hours to 8 days to live. She has to listen to them so they can talk about anything, play games, help them with any assist they may need to make themselves transition into another place and holding their hands , smoothing them until they take their last breathe. All…
Dr. Defilippis discusses how communicating with children is difficult when their parent is sick. She discusses how she is used to talking to adults when someone is dying, but when talking to a child, it’s complicating. You don’t want to discuss too much, because children not only are more sensitive to these topics, but they often do not understand what is being said. The mother she was treating had brain cancer, Stage 4, which even her daughter knew was the worst. Dr. Defilippis was shocked when her daughter knew exactly what to ask and how to ask it when it came to her mother. She knew at that point not to hide anything, and be straight forward. The patient’s daughter looked about fourteen, with a younger brother of ten. When the doctor approached…
The fault in our stars is a book written by john green. The story is about Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old cancer patient, meets and falls in love with Gus Waters also known as Augustus in the book, a similarly afflicted teen from her cancer support group. Hazel feels that Gus really understands her. They both share the same interests and a love of books, especially Grace's touchstone, "An Imperial Affliction" by Peter Van Houten. One of the main themes of the book TFIOS is “Fear of Death”. Hazels has a fear of death which Is explained in the book through many events, like when hazel tells her parents about her depression, when hazel tells Augustus about death separating her from people and when hazel was forced to confront her death.…
Explain: Rosa Lee does not have a strong support network. Rosa Lee never got along well with her mother; her mother always belittled Rosa Lee. Rosa Lee never felt like she was loved by her mother. Rosa Lee did not discuss her relationship with her father in great detail, but Rosa Lee would walk to the bar where her father was at and would help him walk home. Rosa Lee’s father died when she was at a young age. Rosa Lee often seeks the…
The plot of The Fault of Our Stars tells the story of Hazel Grace who experiences…
Illness of someone dear can cause a lot of change to a person’s life. It can scare a person as well as make them uneasy. In the story Ella’s mom is fighting cancer. “…her mother with an IV needle in her arm, the steady drip from the bag of orange liquid, her father speaking softly to himself as he paced the room, her mother shaking so hard she had to be tied down.”(3) Ella’s whole family was affected by their mother’s illness. They were afraid to see where life would take them next.…
Born 4 weeks premature, Silvia was what his parents called their miracle child. So when she gave birth to her 2nd child at the age of 32, her parents were simply ecstatic. Two years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This she is told has now metastasized and involves her bones, which has been causing her severe pain. It’s difficult to take care of her two children and work while fighting for her life. Her oncologists have been trying to identify the chemotherapy drugs that can work for her in the hope of controlling the cancer. But even with all these her suffering is just getting worse. For her children’s Silvia uses all her strength to fight but she has been getting weaker and can barely get out of bed without help. Because of the pain she now spends most of her time curled up in bed, unable to eat or take care of her two young children. Her physician sends her to a specialty clinic in order to try and control her pain and keep her comfortable. This would at least help her resume some of her day-to-day activities. Palliative care clinics provide comfort to patients in order to restore some sort of norm in a patient’s life. This helps the patient be able to cope and take care of his/family.…
I introduced myself to Lorraine in the waiting room, which gave me an ideal chance to speak to her and gain more of an understanding of her condition and how she felt. Lorraine seemed happy to explain her condition and how she felt when she was diagnosed; she welcomed questions and answered them with comfort. The first thing that shocked me was how simply Lorraine spoke about her condition and that the word ‘cancer’ did not scare her when she first heard it. This was my first encounter with a recently diagnosed cancer patient, and I did not know what sort of emotional state to expect Lorraine in, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well she seemed to be coping.…