Above all else, it’s important to realize that your entire life will change, when you least expect it. With this in mind, consider how a tumor will disrupt a sweet life. Prior to “tumor day” we lived a relatively quiet life, but almost 3 years ago this April it all changed. That morning, Eddie my older brother, awaken to the sound of mom’s voice. “Time to rise, you’ll miss the bus”, she said, opening the bedroom door. Startled, he sprung out of bed, dressed, grabbed his backpack, said: “I love you, mom and Tor, see you later." I watched from the kitchen window, he darts down the sun-filled driveway, he ran right past Mrs. Towne’s poodle, Grumpy. He was off, I headed towards the workstation to being the class reading assignment. Finally, an hour or so later assignment completed, I ate breakfast, continued with no further breaks until lunch. Soon after lunch, arrived the “tumor” call that transformed our lives, the call that made the sunny, beautiful day a cold, dark, gloomy one. Strangely enough, a cold, eerie chilled sensation came over the room at the exact …show more content…
All of sudden her hurried pace slowed, trying to steady herself reached out for dad’s arm. At the same time, holding her up and hugging me tightly, explained, “They found a large mass above Eddie’s pelvis.” Mom was listening intensely. He continued, “The mass crushed his pelvis, the intensity of the pain caused the collapse”. Their conversation interrupted, a nurse approached with the release forms for surgery. Mom yelled, “What!” and burst into tears. “Can you please give us a second, we need to discuss this, my baby boy!”. Mom, the strongest among us, now seeing her tears flow, caused my fears to bubble to the surface for a bit. Suddenly, my dad clapped his hands to refocus us that Ed needed surgery now. His hand shook trying to sign the forms. Those papers represented the beginning of a long
The world we live in can be wonderful at times,but can also be dangerous and danger isn’t a good place to start at.The word cancer seems terrifying when someone thinks about it and they should be because there is a lot of types of cancer from all over the word.Cancer is the leading causes of death everywhere you go and it happens from different parts of the body.From someone that doesn’t understand cancer it’s very important to know about the aspects in which they come around.They way a cancer forms,symptons that are caused,and the way each cancer type is treated is very important to consider.
A cancer diagnosis can significantly change your life and the lives of your family in various ways. Hearing the news “you’ve been diagnosed with cancer” leave patients and their families in a whirlwind of emotions. The initial shock of this diagnosis leaves feelings of sadness, denial, frustration, confusion, fear, anger, and often times the “why me?” feeling. Thoughts start going through your head regarding how this affects yourself, your family, and your everyday life.
Isn’t it overwhelming to consider the fact that approximately one in eight deaths in the world are due to cancer? To make this more comprehensible, the number of deaths caused by cancer is greater than caused by AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. Along with the idea that this disease does not have a definite cure is a mind-staggering concept to grasp. If not caught in time, cancer means guaranteed death. These types of thoughts were floating around my head when my mother had told me that my father had mouth cancer.
“Your child has cancer.” This is the sentence that changed Melissa’s life forever, she was just ten years old. Melissa was diagnosed with Wilms’ Tumor, a common cancer found in children. The first thing the doctors did was take Melissa to surgery, but the tumor was to big to remove so they just did a biopsy. The results showed Melissa was already in stage IV. The tumor had started in her right kidney, until it burst the kidney, allowing it to spread to other organs. Melissa immediately started chemotherapy and radiation to try to shrink the tumor. The combination of the two treatments made Melissa vomit up to sixteen times a day! Melissa was diagnosed at the end of March and was in the hospital everyday until June. If she was ever able to go home she would be back in the hospital within 24 hours because of a fever. 90% of the tumor was removed in another surgery once the tumor had shrunk, but the other 10% was wrapped dangerously around her liver. It was decided Melissa would continue with the chemotherapy. However, in October, the treatment turned extremely risky when she
With clammy hands and a racing heart, I numbly walk to my car in the parking lot. I’ve just left my regular doctor’s office with possibly the worst news I could have eve received. The doctor’s words just keep rattling around in my brain as I attempt to control my emotions and not break down in the middle of the parking lot. Quickly climbing into the seat of my vehicle and closing the door, the flood gates finally open. The tears keep coming, and I can’t make them stop.
When speaking to her friend Debbie, Mary says “When it’s your own cancer, it’s tough because you’re feel like you have no control over what’s happening to you. Seeing it with you and with Dad, I get it now that when it’s someone you love, it’s different kind of tough. Because then you really have no control” (page 125). Toward the end of the book, she uses this topic again when talking about Debbie’s scans, because they are not looking good. She talks about how it is not fair and how she wishes that Debbie could use the same miracle drug she was given. One of the other struggles Mary talks about is the unknown and how she has no idea when it will be her last day or the one she loves last day. She writes “Our families walk to the cars, and we promise to see each other again as soon as possible. I wonder if we will, though. See each other again, I mean cancer has a way of changing your relationship with the future and your plans for it” (page 193). Cancer is an uncontrollable illness that will do whatever it wants to, for people as sick as Mary and Debbie, it could all change in a flash. All of a sudden they are dying and there is nothing that can be done. Thankfully they do see each
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
In December, my father suffered a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. His heart stopped twice during the operation, and he was not expected to survive. He had an intensive recovery period, and I wanted nothing more than to make him better immediately. His trauma had made me impatient and afraid to hope. I was having trouble waiting for things to unfold naturally and wanted to know what would happen in the end. Simple, everyday decisions or occurrences took on great importance.
Imagine having a perfectly normal life, then having everything change in 5 minutes. My life was completely normal... up until my brother was diagnosed with leukemia. Blood cancer. In an instant my life changed from the average life, to a cancer infested one. On December 1st something happened to change my life forever; cancer happened.
Cancer is an unforgiving disease that affects countless families nationwide. I have always heard conversations about it here and there. The media would talk about how much it impacts our world today and tell stories of miracles and survivors. However, I never thought my family and I would be affected by it. After hearing it said so many times, it stopped sounding so dangerous, it became something ordinary. However, once I knew that it was going to have an impact on my family it became something more real than I wished it to be.
As I stood in the living room awaiting the news, my heart immediately grew heavy and I felt a throbbing sensation in my throat. My eyes welled up and my knees became weak and at that moment the control that I thought I had over my life dissipated. My only option was to run, and before I realized it my face was jammed into my pillow sobbing. With my family having recently relocated to a new town thousands of miles away from what I called home it was impossible for me to fathom that I could lose more than just my friends. All I knew about cancer up to this point was how the movies depicted it. From that day on it was my personal quest to accurately conceptualize what was wrong with my mom and how I could help. My interest was sparked and I needed to know everything regarding cancer treatments, the side effects of those treatments, and stage survival rates. Consequently, I was powerless to help my mother and while I understood what was happening, I felt as if I was a failure. She was the epitome of courage as she underwent five weeks of chemotherapy treatment, which slowed the aggressive nature of her breast cancer. Shortly after chemotherapy,
A couple years ago, when I was around 9 or 10, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. That may sound awful, and it is, but my family and I knew that he would be alright. It scared me at the time, being a kid and all, that he could die. All I had ever heard was that cancer killed. Anyways, the treatments began shortly after and I never really saw him. Between treatments, travel, and the need for rest, he was never around. The few times my sisters and I did see him, they were too scared to be around him. The cancer infected his throat, due to a history of smoking, so he had tubing going into his stomach so he could eat. The pastiness of his skin frightened them as well. The look of sorrow on his face, knowing my sisters were uneasy, discouraged me deeply. I begged that he would get better and everything would go back to the way they used to. Overtime the situation lightened and my dad was finally free of cancer.
I was needed immediately in the emergency room. I ran as quickly as I could to get there. When I arrived I noticed my patient was a seven year old girl got in a car accident with her Mom because of a drunk driver. I performed surgery on her and her Mom. After I checked up on my other patients I went back to her to see how she was doing. “It’s so horrible how someone so young can be in so much pain because of someone making an immature decision,” I thought.
Diamond Bar High School teacher Christian Calero went from facing death to instructing students on the finer points of public speaking—all in the span of seven months. Despite having gone through a rigorous treatment process to kill the cancer cells residing in his neck, the cancer survivor is back to his teaching ways, spending his days in class pushing his students toward success.
Three months passed by and he still was not himself. But, I was very grateful for his consciousness. I walked into his room. The room had a dim-lighting to it. Attached to a heart monitor, there he laid on the bed. My father had been wrapped in bandages from head to toe; only his face was exposed. Thankfully, he had been doing a lot