One ordinary day at home, our phone rang and my mother answered it as if she would answer any other phone calls. The one thing that hit me was when she started to cry. As a kid, I went and hugged her keeping…
On Saturday July 2, 2010 I meet Tiffany a 10 year old girl that has leukemia at St. Jude Children’s Hospital. We started talking and when she told me she had leukemia I was surprised how happy she seemed, so I asked her why she seems so happy when she knows she has a disease that’s life threatening, her response was “you only live once and if something were to happen to me the day after tomorrow I don’t want to have any regrets “like I wish I did that” I want to know that I lived my life to the fullest when it’s time for me to go.” When Tiffany told me that it inspired me because you don’t know what the future holds. Although this little girl had gone through intense sessions of chemotherapy somehow she still found the strength to influence…
There is a lot of pain and struggle in us that we sometimes find hard to deal with. I was a child when I first learned what cancer meant and what it would do to my beautiful, loving and caring grandmother. I was still too young to understand fully, but I knew more or less that she would be leaving us too soon in her time. I saw her struggle with the changes the sickness had done to her body. She was weak and always tired. It hurt me so much to see her in pain and she always tried her very best to not show that she was hurting around us. She would smile and always have words of wisdom. Growing up she was the only person I thought I could tell my secrets to, my grandmother was my best friend. Before she passed I wanted to hold her, be with her and just…
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…
Throughout my life, I have had the chance and opportunity to meet many people who have seen great adversity in their life, but one person that sticks out in my mind is when I am sitting in the audience at my grandpa’s funeral listening to my Aunt Deb give her eulogy.…
My grandma's condition wasn't anything but hard for me and my family to deal with. Everyday with her was a roller coaster that held many twists and turns and couldn't stay on the track. If you didn't hold on tight, you’d thrown off. You never knew what she would remember each morning that she woke. Some days she would know the date and she was aware of her surroundings, while other days (which weren’t so great), she'd be back in time when her husband was alive and she’d call for him. Then she’d be puzzled as to why he wouldn't call her name back. When my mom would bear her the bad news he has been gone for years, my great grandma turned as silent as a mouse for the remainder of the day, wallowing in her sorrow. Yet, as her memory faded, mine…
When I found out my grandmother had Breast Cancer I was filled with solicitude and anxiety. My grandmother became despondent and ashamed of her cancer, and as her hair started to fall out, I noticed the nervousness in her eyes which caused me to be more concerned. A week later she had to go into surgery. Knowing my grandmother was going through such a life-changing event, I wasn't able to be myself. It was difficult to concentrate in class or conversed with my friends. All I could think about was my grandmother. I played sports and become more involved in church to help keep my mind off it. I would pray she was going to be okay. I panic over the fact I might lose her, so I would cry myself to sleep. One day when I arrived home from school, my aunt told me she was done with her surgery and we…
The next day at lunch was buzzing. Everyone was talking about my home run and our big win, but that wasn't the biggest thing on everyone's tongue.…
My grandparents were healthy and doing amazing. My grandad went to the doctor and he came back with some news. He told us he was diagnosed with colon cancer. I was only 2, I really don’t remember anything or knew how it would affect my family. We stayed positive, but sadly he passed on my 3rd birthday. 1 year later my grandmother was soon diagnosed with lung cancer around the beginning of May. She passed at 12:03 on May 27th, my birthday. I remember them letting me go back into the brightly lit hallway and my mom was holding me. She asked the nurse if I could go back to the dimly lit room and…
My best friend Leah Nepomuceno is one of the strongest people I know, especially when it comes to family. Family to her is everything and she has done all she can to try and keep hers together as a whole. We were in sixth grade swinging on the swings outside at recess, whispering and giggling about our usual gossip when she received news from one of our teachers that we knew was serious by the look on her face and fear in her voice. She came up to us and told her she needed to go the office and that she was being dismissed, she gave me permission to walk with her inside. On the short but long felt walk inside Leah's heart was pounding, her hands were sweating, and her eyes were slowly filling with tears. Her mom was sitting in the big, blue, leather office chair with many of our elementary school teachers huddled around her sharing their sincere heart felt sympathy and much needed support. Leah's mom, Deb, had found out that day that her husband Ron, Leah's dad, was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The doctor had told Deb that is was going to slowly take away all of his muscles, eventually killing him and there was no cure for it. This news was heart wrenching for me to hear, since they were my second family, I grew up with them, Ron was my second dad. "It was like the last 11 years of memories with my dad flashed before my eyes and I didn't know what to do besides think of all the things we haven't done that we need to do before he dies," Leah replied when I asked her what her first thought was when she heard the news (Nepomuceno). Just talking to her now about it, 7 years later, is still just as heart breaking and you can hear the sadness in her voice.…
I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer in March, 2006. My father and I only had three months to prepare for life without her. This time period affected me deeply as I was only six years old.…
Cancer; defined as “any evil condition or thing that spreads destructively.” To most, cancer is an imprisoning disease victimizing innocent people who don’t deserve to go through the suffering that cancer prescribes. To me, however, it was just a word. Without a warning, my grandpa, was diagnosed, just like that, with lung cancer of all things. Contrary to my brother and sister, I didn’t understand the significance of cancer. Everyone I had ever known with cancer had been a survivor, not a victim. When I found out Gidu was diagnosed, I thought would be everything would be ok. This was the not the case.…
I only cried once during the months she went through treatment. It took a few days for the reality of the situation to sink in, the reality that my Mom had cancer. After the Terror numbed, I couldn’t allow self-pity when there were so many important things I needed to do. I became an adult December of my Junior year of High School when I realized I needed to take responsibility for myself and my family when my mom was unable to.…
When I first heard the word cancer I was in elementary school and I had no idea of what it meant; all I knew was my grandmother had it. The word cancer was something I never really understood until I got older and heard a friend of mine say that her father was dying from brain cancer. My grandmother fought cancer for fives years until she got tired of the never ending fight. That was my first real experience of death. Even though our family knew it was coming, there was no way for our family to prepare for how we felt at that moment. I was there in the hospital room when my grandmother passed and I've never seen someone look so peaceful after passing, she finally looked like she was out of pain. Even at the age of 15 there was still so much I didn't know about her sicken. It took a long time for me to get over the empty space in my life that my grandmother filled.…
Although there are many challenges that people go through, my biggest one was when my dog died. It was an alluring summer day and my mom, sister, and I had been woken by the sound of my three legged dog who had a tumor on her leg.…