Personal Narrative: My Experience With Breast Cancer

At age 11, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was caught early enough that she had a good chance of overcoming it but, at 11, anything that ended with the word "cancer" sounded like a death sentence to me. Overnight, a previously silent genetic mutation had flipped my world upside down. Going through chemotherapy and radiation was taxing on my mother both physically and emotionally, as one might expect, but it was also taxing on my entire family. This experience was the first time I ever truly knew how it felt to endure hardship in my family. Prior to this, the most difficult experience of my life was when we had to put our cats down, so this was a major adjustment. I share this story because it has been a major influence on the person I am and the priorities I have
My grandmother and great-aunt both survived breast cancer before I was born, so I wanted to get involved at a young age, but once it came so close to me, I felt as if I had no choice. This experience demonstrated just how okay it is to feel beaten down by this disease, even if you haven't had it. When I joined the Susan G. Komen 3-day community, (twice on the Youth Corps and twice as a walker) I met survivors. I met the survivors who went through chemotherapy, but I also met the survivors like myself who experienced powerlessness while watching from a distance. That is a difficult experience in it's own right.
Lastly, this experience really taught me how to prioritize. Perhaps this isn't the greatest thing to write on a college application, but love will always trump everything else in my life. This taught me that sometimes it's okay to miss a homework assignment or a band practice sheet because your mom is in the hospital over a fever that would normally mean a sick day from work. Love is always the top priority, no matter where I go and no matter what I