How Leukemia Changed My Life

When I was a freshman in high school, a young boy named Bo, who I attended school with, was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia. This was the first time I was really exposed to cancer and what it does to a person. My grandmother had died from lung cancer before I was born, so I never was exposed to the gruesomeness of the disease. Bo was twelve years old when he was diagnosed with a rare form Leukemia. Prior to being diagnosed with Leukemia, Bo was an normal active boy, who was friends with everyone. I was three years older than Bo, but we lived in a small community where everyone knew each other. Bo Johnson was friends with a lot of my friends siblings and we all would hang out at the same town park.
After Bo was diagnosed with Leukemia, he spent a lot of time at the hospital. However, at the end of his fight he came back home to spend time with his family and friends. This is when I began to be exposed to the painfulness of the disease on
I wanted to work with children, so that they would never have to grow up too fast, so they would never have to accept the fact that their life was ending before it ever really began. I want to become a pediatric doctor so I can be the one that devotes their life to making sure that kids, get to be kids, despite all the illness that are in the world. As I got older, more and more of the people around me began to be diagnosed with cancer, first my uncle, then my grandpa, then one of my friends mothers. As this began to happen, it began to cement the fact that I want to work in the medical field, I want to help people. Specifically, I want to help children, because at that age they are dependent on adults, and they should never be let down by them. The adults in their life, the doctors in their life, should not have to let their children down and tell them that they won’t be able to grow up to be doctors