Breast Cancer: A Personal Narrative Of My Life

You never realize how evil cancer truly is until it affects you or your family. I was four when cancer first affected me, stage four leukemia. My two year old cousin Conor was on the verge of death, and I had absolutely no clue. For the first nine months of his fight all I knew that he was sick, I assumed he had a cold, not fighting for his life. When I was five my mom sat me down to tell me that Conor was not going to make it, and that my brother and I were going with her to Albany to visit him. His bones were sticking out, his head looked like a bowling ball, and his skin was a pale blue. He looked like a child in a concentration camp during World War II. Honestly if you were to think of what a dead child looked like, that was him. That was the first time I realized that my mom was right, and that Conor was not going to make it.

I'm glad to hear that you're feeling slightly better!!!!! I had a similar issue with my grandma who had breast cancer, as well as other family members. I was so frustrated and found the doctors were equally responsible for a multitude of reasons. I packed up her bags and moved her North, where she could receive treatment at the Mayo clinic. Everything is coordinated for you (like it should be)!!! Results (labs/scans) are immediately sent to your smartphone when they become available, and you receive a list of all your specialist appointments and testing in advance. Labs/scans/, etc. are done (same day) onsite prior to your doctor's appointment all under one roof. You have a team of doctors working together on your treatment

“Sarah has cancer,” is a phrase that changed my life. I was barely ten years old when my dad picked me up from volleyball practice to explain why my little sister had been in the hospital so much. At the time, Sarah was eight and had been in and out of hospitals and various doctor’s appointments over the past two months to try and figure out what was going on. Learning she had cancer was both a relief and burden. The feeling of relief occurred because now we finally knew what was wrong, but it was a burden because you hear about cancer in the elderly, not in eight year-old girls that love sports.

No one thinks that it will happen to them. No one thinks that one day it might be them walking into the doctor’s office, only to hear those three horrifying words – “You have cancer.” To say that cancer changed my life is an enormous understatement. Cancer took me on an insane roller coaster for two years.. turning, twisting, jerking. I never thought it would happen to me. I heard those three lethal words, but they were not spoken to me. My father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December of 2014.

In 2005 my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, just like Gus, but for her it was for the first time, not a recurrence. When my grandmother had breast cancer, had was 61 years-old. She started to think she had cancer when she saw a weird lump on her skin. Worried, she hurried to her doctor and asked her doctor about it. Her doctor performed a biopsy, a test that determines whether her skin on her breast had cancerous cells, on a section of her skin where she suspected cancer. The test came back positive and she had breast cancer. In the following months her body was bombarded by multiple rounds of chemotherapy every week. During chemotherapy she began to act just like Gus did when he had

Everything in life can be associated with a color, happiness is a bright and inviting yellow, while sadness could be a dull and dismal grey. One afternoon, my twin brother, Chris, and I were sitting on the couch, smiling and laughing with one another. Vibrant shades of yellows and oranges surrounded us and made me feel safe and at ease. Our parents walked into the living room with somber looks on their faces, my mother looked upset. That was the day I found out my mother had been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. The Russell’s lifestyle was challenged now with a horrible plague my mother was burdened with. The prominent color present in the house went from a warm red to a darker shade, a color I associate with the threat of death. Something about that didn’t sit well with me.

After a while of sitting in my grandparents living room mindlessly playing with my toys I decided to get up. I walked towards the commotion going on in the small hallway connecting the living room to the kitchen. The gathering of people consisted of my mom, dad, grandpa, and grandma. Curious about what was going on I walked over to the group. I reached my mom and looked up to see that her eyes were bloodshot, as if she had been crying. I looked over to my dad and his face, like everyone else's, was grim. During this time I kept hearing one repeating word, cancer. I started to listen more closely to the conversation going on around me because even at the age of seven I knew that cancer was bad news. I listened intently and heard my mom explain how she had colon cancer.

Living with cancer is an enormous challenge, and most of us are encouraged to try coping skills like yoga, meditation and patient support groups. While I have found several techniques helpful, expressive writing has been surprisingly therapeutic for me. This seemed to come out of nowhere. I had published journal articles, book chapters and scientific papers during my career. I had even written a few simple rhymes for social occasions and business functions, but I had never considered doing any creative writing before cancer struck. My cancer adventure began early in 2014 when a large tumor was discovered in my head and neck. This explained my recent hearing loss and the jaw pain I had felt for some time. It was an advanced, high-grade cancer,

It had been two and a half years since my initial diagnosis of stage 3 Breast Cancer. For the first few months after my diagnosis, I possessed some optimism despite the odds not being in my favour. I would often be a victim of pitiful looks and glances that conveyed, “I am so sorry for you.”, “Your days are numbered, sweetheart.” and “You are fighting a lost battle.” “Fighting a lost battle?” I would mutter in my mind. Ah nevah loss in meh life and ah sure ah not going tuh start now. Ah doh wah people remember meh as the woman who had breast cancer instead ah want to be remembered fuh all meh achievements and the good things ah do in meh life. Ah doh wah meh neighbours to say, “Yuh remember Elizabeth Jacob, she was one pretty woman, but now,

Being diagnosed with cancer I knew I only had one option and that was to take it to the Lord and when I did, wow! He not only healed me He delivered me too of addictions! I repented of my sins to Jesus with my whole heart and He healed me! Not instantly it was a process for months, everything except drinking and smoking that He did

Two years ago, my grandmother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. One year ago, my family and I were informed that she only had a year to live at the most. For months we've sat on the edges of our seats, watching her go through hard times to even more difficult times and wondering what moment would be the last. It was this fall that we realized these past few months would be our last with her.

One experience where I received a lot of suffering for a significant period is when I found out that my mother got diagnosed with breast cancer. When my mother got diagnosed, the doctors said it was an early catch because there were no physical signs of it. They were surprised that my mother even felt any difference. Thank God, it wasn’t anything serious but at first, they didn’t know if it had spread, which caused me to break a little. I would wake up in the morning and see my dad sitting in the garage by himself just crying sometime, which also broke me even more because I haven’t ever really experience my dad in that type of stage. The only reason I started to deal with it was because my mom was so strong, she would tell me not to worry

The summer before 11th grade, I volunteered at the Baylor College of Medicine Sue and Lester Smith Breast Infusion Center. While there, I assisted the nurses with making the breast cancer chemotherapy patients get comfortable with snacks and blankets, organizing medical supplies. However, since all these tasks didn’t take too long, I often had majority of my day to spend time with the patients. I gave them company during their 2-4 hour long chemotherapy treatment and listened to their anecdotes about life and advice for me as I continued high school. By the end of the summer, I knew all of the patients inside out ; name of their dogs, their favorite ice cream flavor, their most memorable vacations. However, one of the patients really affected my take on life.

It was March 2002, my dad was taking my grandma home from her last chemo treatment for breast cancer, I was with my mom and some preschool friends and I fell off the monkey bars and broke my arm, My mom rushed me to the hospital feeling every bump in the road. This hospital couldn't help me and I was driven by ambulance to the children's hospital where my mom called my dad and he dropped off my grandma at her house in seattle and came straight back to the hospital for his daughter with a broken arm. I was really little at the time and don't remember much from the experience of her going through cancer. However I don't think there has been a time in my 17 years of life that I can remember her being healthy. My other grandparents both had skin cancer but they were able to not let that influence the rest of their lives. My grandma however never was healthy.

When my grandma was diagnosed with cancer we knew our time left with her was limited. This was the first time I had to deal with cancer first hand. You always hear about it on the television, in the news, and from people but never imagine it would someone you are close to. Once we found out the news she was already at stage 4 of esophogeal cancer. She had been battling with it for months but kept it a secret so we wouldn’t worry about her. Grandma was the type of women that liked to do things on her own even if it took double the amount of time. Family is everything she would constantly remind us. Grandma did whatever it took to keep us all close and happy. She was a stubborn, independently lady who refused to ask for help which explains why she didn’t tell us sooner.