Adversity: a difficult situation or tragedy
In what ways has adversity touched your life and shaped your view of the future? How do you anticipate “paying it forward” as you pursue your higher education and beyond?
If you were to say you have never faced adversity in your life you are either lying or in denial because no matter how privileged, sheltered or loved you are, you have surely faced some sort of adversity. We face small adversities on a daily basis, but it is the larger, more difficult adversities that change our views of ourselves, our lives and the future.
At the age of 5 years old the adversity that weather I knew it or not at the time would end up shaping my life for the next 13 years came to fruition. My mom, the person that
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Eventually things in my life as a first grader returned to normal. My family was complete again and everyone was home. It never crossed my mind that it could come back until 4 years later when it did. Throughout the next 13 years after the original diagnosis, the cancer has come back 4 times. Now that I am old enough to understand what is wrong, I can honestly say that it isn’t the hospital visits that touch my life the most. Of course when she is in the hospital it is hard but now that I can go visit her as I please it makes it a whole lot easier. The thing that has touched my life the most is something that most people probably take for granted and don’t even know they have. It is the security and confidence in the health of their loved ones. It is the fact that they don’t have to worry about their dad, brother, mom being sick. They don’t have to worry about how long they will have their loved ones for. As I look back upon the years that I have fully understood what is going on with my mom’s health that I realize how much it has shaped me. I truly don’t know how long I have left with her, or if something similar could happen to me. This constant adversity in my life has made me try to not take things, especially time for
Living our busy lives no one else in the family could travel to Houston. Grandma was a strong woman. She could overcome anything and cancer was not going to defeat her. When she arrived at the hospital the doctors took a cat scan and figured out that she had stage four melanoma skin cancer. While my mother and grandma were at M.D. Anderson I was at home living a normal life just starting my first high school basketball season. Every night I worried about how she was doing not thinking about my school work or my athletics. A couple weeks later I called grandma and asked her how she was doing and she assured me that everything was going to be okay and that I should not worry about her. That’s how she lived. She never put herself first in any situation and family and friends were her main focus. Grandma would do anything to make her grandkids happy. I told my grandma I loved her and hung up the phone. The next day at school I looked up the percentage of people killed by melanoma skin cancer and the results were not good. One person dies of melanoma every 54 minutes. When I got home that evening I told my dad that I needed to be in Houston with my grandma. He said he didn’t think that he could make it happen with his busy schedule. I called my mom upset realizing that
As a child I suffered an event that framed my life, a catastrophe that would change my life at least temporarily. This catastrophe changed things all around me, things in my family changed and things at home changed ever since that day. I remember we were all exited, we were going on a family vacation to different regions of Colombia.
When I was 4 years old my grandpa, on my dad’s side of the family, passed away. He had colon cancer which had spread to his liver. At the time I did not understand what had happened, but as I grew older I started to understand that life is temporary and should be treasured by everyone. I still miss my grandpa and would give any...
During the Spring of 2012 my mother became ill with bilateral breast cancer. During this time I was in school and unable to travel to see her or assist my brothers. Being that she was the only family member I lived with it was difficult to focus on my schoolwork as well as think about my mom and two brothers who were at home with these problems. My mother would recover and return to health a year later after surgery and treatment, but the issues continued to arise in our home.
From the death of my father, the influences of my loving grandparents, to the births of my own children. The hardships that I have been through and the love from people all around me have shaped me into who I am today.
On January 12th, 2017 my mom was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. My mom, my sister and me were in the car about to go into the grocery store when my mom received a call from the cancer treatment center of Philadelphia , they had results from a few tests my took. When the call ended my mom suddenly dropped her phone and began to cry. I could only imagine what they said and what was going on with her body. During this
I was 10 when my mother was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. Naturally, I was scared and the thought of losing my mother was something I couldn’t fathom. My mom’s strength throughout her treatment was almost unbelievable. She drove
In life, people will always have something to say about you in everything one does in life, either negative or positive, but it’s the moment when you let what is said upon you affect the way you live your life, that when its becomes a problem. I for myself have been victim of so many people saying things about me and letting get into my head, but I had the courage to overcome a lot of obstacles like that. I have struggled with a lot of obstacles in my life some got the better of me while I have been able to overcome most of them. I am writing this essay to give an example of an obstacle which I struggled with for a very long time and I nearly took the best of me, but with time I was able to overcome it.
The last thing I would want to hear as a twelve year old girl was, “Your dad has cancer.” It was September 2011 when I found out my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I was in shock and speechless as to what I should even say. I can remember my mom telling me about the unfortunate news while she tried to hide the tears behind her eyes. As a young girl I never expected a family member especially my dad to have cancer. Many questions like what would I do without my dad filled my head. I started to doubt God as to how could this happen to an amazing man. I had so many negative thoughts in my mind yet on the outside I tried to show people that I was okay.
She began to suffer from hair and weight loss as well as the color change of her skin. My mind began to intersect with thoughts of her dying from cancer. I decided negativity would no longer control my thoughts; I had a grandmother who needed me to be strong and think positive about her condition, regardless of the situation and her physical changes. During the time of my grandmother chemotherapy treatments, I would miss school to attend her appointments. As a sophomore in high school, I could only miss a small amount of days before any negative effects displayed toward my grades. Therefore, I would miss school every Tuesday and Thursday for the next four months of my first semester of tenth grade. I didn’t mind because my grandmother meant the world to me and I would have done it a thousand times, if I was given the
Overcoming adversity is imperative. In fact, you can 't have the happiness and success you want unless you have adversity in your life and overcome it. It is essential for progressing into who you want to be. It shows you what you are made of. It teaches you more about yourself, how to approach what you want, and how to maintain the success that you have. Without it, you wouldn 't know how far you could go or how capable you are because you wouldn 't have anything to push you or compare to.
It was June 6, 2011. I remember taking my mother to the County Hospital’s emergency room. She seemed extremely exhausted; her eyes were half-closed and yellow, and she placed her elbow on the armchair, resting her head on her palm. I remember it was crowded and the wait was long, so she wanted to leave. I was the only one there with her, but I did not allow her to convince me to take her home. I told her in Spanish, “Mom, let’s wait so that we can get this over with and know what’s going on with you. You’ll see everything is okay, and we’ll go home later on.” I wish then and now that would have been the case. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with colon cancer that had spread to many parts of her body including her lungs and kidneys. The doctor said to me not considering that I was a minor and my mother’s daughter, “Her disease is very advanced and we don’t think she will live longer than a year.” With this devastating news, I did not know what to do. I thought to myself that perhaps I should cry, or try to forget and take care of her as best I could and make her laugh to ease her pain.
Some may think of Easter as a happy time when family comes together. Our family was the opposite. I was only fourteen years old when I was struck in the face with the greatest adversity a teenager could face. April 4th, 2015 will always be in me. One can only overcome adversity if they dedicate their mind and heart into resolving the obstacle.
At the age of 13, years old hearing big words like “Hodgkin Lymphoma”, It was confusing because I did know what it meant. Seeing my mom cry haunted me and then I knew it was something bad and serious. With a confused face I listened to the doctors who told me it was a type of cancer within the lymph nodes. I sat and thought” wow”. My grandma and grandpa have cancer, so is this a contagious disease that gets passed on through a hug and a kiss on the cheek? Four years ago I had to accept I was a child with cancer. Having cancer at a young age while still in school is difficult. Having cancer was a big challenge in my life that I had to face because I could either die or was going to get through the challenge. So, the end of my 7th grade year, I knew that I wanted to be an oncologist. Being in remission I have learned a great deal about oncology, knowing how to accept aspects of the disease and how to face challenges. With all the help, love, and support of my family, and also having the doctors and nurses there with me, basically holding my hand through
Around the age of 6 my mom was hospitalized because she had extreme headaches, and that’s when she found out she had a tumor in her brain. She kept this a secret from me because she didn’t want to see me suffer more than what I already was. About a week after she found out the news of her tumor, my mom was obligated to tell me because she had to go to Florida to get surgery, since the hospitals in Peru did not have the proper equipment to do this surgery. After my mother broke the news to me, we both started crying. I did not know much about tumors, but I did know that it was a life threatening disease. The next day my mom and I went to the doctor to find out what procedure she should take to not put her life at risk. In that same appointment, we found out the pricy amount of the surgery. With my mom’s salary and all of our expenses, it was going to be impossible to pay for the operation, and my mom had to make the tough decision to postpone