Saturday mornings was our time or more like my time to debrief. The trees hovered over us, along with the identical apartment buildings across the street. Children played games on the sidewalk without a care in the world. Music played out loud from a neighbor’s window, and an ambulance wailed in the distance. Men strolled around, and cigarette aroma filled the air. There, outside of her apartment complex, on the concrete steps we talked. Talking to my grandma was my safe place where I could speak freely. She would make things make it easier with her advice or sometimes just listen. Although she couldn’t relate to many of my issues, she never failed at giving the best advice.
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.
Instead of throwing a pitty-party
It was near the end of winter 2005, when my grand-aunt suddenly fell ill. In a short period of time her illness worsened and the doctors informed my family, my grand-aunt only had a couple of months to live. The news was devastating to my family as we watched a vivacious, independent, and outspoken woman, who enjoyed shopping, reading mystery novels and spending time with family become very weak and confined to her bed. Instead of placing my grand-aunt in a hospice facility, my family and I, with the assistance of a hospice nurse cared for my grand-aunt in her home until her passing.
When my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, we were all very sad, but she believed that she could win. There are five stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She never got to the stage of acceptance because she knew she was strong enough to fight this rigorous battle. Although she knew the cancer was inside of her, she never let it change her life. She always looked on the bright side of things and saw this illness as an opportunity to live life to the fullest and be with family more. Being optimistic makes her a hero because thinking on the bright side gave her a positive attitude and gave her the strength to fight against
My grandma was a mother of three. She had my Aunt heather, Aunt Angie, and my mother. She raised my mother and Heather while going to college, which is a fight on its own, but to make it more difficult, she had hodgkins and had spent over an entire year fighting it in Iowa’s childrens hospital and held victory her senior year.. The chances of surviving hodgkins in the 60’s was around 75% and wasn’t the end for my Grandma, she lived to fight another day. Moving on in her life,She spent most of her time studying, she graduated high school on the top of her class, then going to college of hamilton for business. During that time, she had my mom and my Aunt Heather on the way.
This leads to where I started back at my house when my dad told my sister and I that my grandfather was diagnosed with Leukemia. That was one of the hardest things for me to hear considering that my grandfather was a big part of my life. My dad said that he was going to be in hospice care without chemotherapy because he said: “That he had lived his life.” Two weeks after being put into hospice care my grandfather passed away with all of his family by his side.
My Great Grandma was my best friend, I’m not sure how else to describe our relationship. She was someone I looked up to and hoped to be like when I grew up. She taught me a lot about life and how crazy it can be. Whenever I have tough days I replay her encouraging words in my head. Towards the end of February of 2013, my family received a call from my Great Grandpa to inform us that my Great Grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. We found this out only a few weeks before we were supposed to head down to Arizona to visit them for spring break. Our family didn’t know how severe it was going down there, we came to find out she was genuinely unhealthy. She didn’t want to leave her room, she didn’t want to complete simple tasks, she would tell
Cancer, you have heard of it, that horrible disease has taken away two of my family members. one of them died long before I was born. Today you will read about the one of my loved ones that died most recently in my history, my grandmother.
Through all of the challenging things that took place while my father was fighting cancer, I learned many valuable lessons. My parents decided that my father would undergo chemotherapy and radiation at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Newnan, Georgia. Normally, they would be gone for about two weeks at a time, but there were a couple occasions that my parents were forced to stay there for months due to major surgeries. Home alone in Florida, my brother and I had very different schedules. So, I was alone most of the time. I was only a sophomore in high school, and I found myself having to do pretty much everything on my own. Even though it was onerous, this time in my life is very meaningful to me. It taught me that I will not always have someone to rely on. Even if it was a little earlier than normal, I am thankful that I was forced to become as independent as I am today. I value this chapter in my life, because I believe that being strong and independent is very critical to being able to survive in the world we live in
Five years ago in 2012 my Aunt Mary died from cancer. Cancer had consumed her whole body. It started in her liver and spread to different organs and even reached her brain. When she found out she had cancer she was told she only had a few months to live. I had just seen her on a trip we had before we found out she had cancer and that was the last time I saw her.
In October of 2016, my grandma passed away from a hard battle with cancer. My grandma was my rock, the person who always pushed me to be better, the person who was always encouraging me to keep going, and the person who inspired me the most. During the battle, I experienced a lot of adversity. Whether it was school or cross country meets, that feeling never seemed to go away.
The first time I helped her we walked to the bathroom, and I helped her sit on the toilet. The very first thing she would do is reach for the top drawer of the bathroom sink. I would see her open it up and take out a box of cigarettes and a lighter. My grandma then had me turn on the exhaust fan and sit in there with her while she puffed on a cigarette. I was shocked the first time and told my parents about it because I couldn’t help but wonder, “why would you smoke when you have cancer?!” Then it hit me, she already has cancer, she knows she is old, and she didn’t care. It was her choice. It made sense because she knew she was going to pass and she had talked about it to my family and I. There was no reason to try and stop her from smoking cigarettes every time she went to the bathroom because that was her
After many chemotherapy sessions, it became clear that the chemo was truly killing her! Of course, when you are in a situation where your life is involved you begin to do any an everything that comes to mind to help the big problem. With that being said, granny flew to Houston Texas to the cancer center to begin a new type of chemo. Once she arrived in Houston she decided she no longer wanted to go through with chemo, she told us she believed that we needed to put it in the Lords hands and let him handle
Three weeks prior to the call, my grandma had just been diagnosed with stage 3 throat cancer on top of her already hard diagnosis of MS, otherwise known as multiple sclerosis. She was on so many pills for her MS that barely even helped het that it had taken a bit of convincing to even get her to agree to fight the cancer. She told everyone in the family that she was tired and it didn't help matters that she refused to
When I was a LET 1, my grandmother was struggling with breast cancer. She needed a lot of help and support from me and the rest of my family. She
My dad was diagnosed with cancer about 5 years ago. I was in middle school so I knew enough to understand that it was a very serious and scary thing which not all people can defeat. I had a very frightening realization that he could die and I might only have a limited time left with him. When he started to receive the chemotherapy treatments I knew that I had to step up and help out. This taught me that I had to get things done and I couldn’t procrastinate. He ended up defeating the cancer and coming home soon after, I’ll always remember how this experience taught me to stay strong and
Last year my grandmother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. You may think this will be a sob story, where I hope by the end of my essay you will feel so bad for me that you have no other choice but to admit into your school. That is not the case at all. To me, the story of my grandmother’s battle is not one of heartbreak but one of perseverance.