Narrative Essay On Level 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma

March 15th, 2010, was a completely normal day. As normal as any day is for a twelve year old homeschooler. I was home with my oldest sister Brittany who was twenty at the time and I was just finishing up my homework for the day. After finishing up my math work I went to go watch television in the living room. Brittany was in her room and my parents didn't get home until later because of work. A few hours into my movie, my stomach started to hurt. Since I was twelve I didn't no the differences of pain so I just left it alone for a while. Later in the day my abdomen was aching so much I couldn't even get off the couch. After wailing for Brittany to call Mom I was sent to the emergency room in an ambulance with severe abdomen pain. After several hours in the ER and multiple tests, doctors found nothing. I was sent home and was told to take Tylenol for the pain. Once I got home, it didn't hurt anymore so I thought they were right and that I could just go on with my crazy life as a twelve year old. I was wrong. Two months after, I got the same

Living with hearing loss wasn’t always an enjoyable experience. Growing up, I gradually became more and more self-conscious of my hearing loss. Sometimes, I became so anxious that I kept asking people to repeat themselves just because I didn’t think I heard them correctly the first time. Most of the time, I simply needed to relax in order to comprehend what the other person was saying–I discovered later on that playing the piano and exercising allowed me to maintain my composure.

I have overcome lots of obstacles in my life. They weren't the easiest to overcome, but I did it. There is one obstacle I had to go through which made me a strong individual mentally and physically. I lived in New Jersey for my entire life. I grew up there, I had all of my family and friends in Jersey. I was sure my future was going to rely in Jersey. During 7th grade, I got the news that we were going to move to North Carolina. I was thrilled to move to another state. As each day passed, I thought how I would have to start in a new school and make new friends. Every time it struck me knowing that I would have to start a new life. I was nervous not knowing what would happen to my future. I wanted to stay in New Jersey because I was scared of

Cancers arising from the lymph nodes or other sites of lymphoid tissue are broadly termed lymphomas. This group of diseases is divided into Hodgkin’s disease and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In both conditions, there is a replacement of normal lymphatic tissue by collections of abnormal lymphoma cells.

The most significant challenged I ever faced is being diagnosed with severe Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome my junior year of college. Receiving my diagnosis I was upset and negative about the situation. I knew financially I could not get the surgery, and I knew I needed to push on through college. Nevertheless, I never let my diagnosis get the best of me. My diagnosis did not get the best of me because I started to see it as a positive challenge. Additionally, I realized my diagnosis taught me important life lessons. One of the life lessons taught to me, by my diagnosis, was to not add constant stress to the situation out of my control. If a situation is out of my control, like being diagnosed with WPW, the worst response is constant

There are many factors that facilitate in recognizing health-related symptoms. The book mentions, “when attention is directed toward the body, as by stress, neuroticism, or cues that suggest illness, symptoms are more likely to be detected” (Intro to Health Behaviors, pg.158). For example, they had an example about a guy who goes to the emergency room with his whole family for a sore throat. So, the doctors were wondering why this young man will bring his whole family to cure a sore throat. They come to find out that this young mans brother was diagnosed with hodgkins disease and the first symptom his brother had was a sore throat. Afountenly, his brother did not make it because his family decided to ignore the sore throat thinking that it

My biggest obstacle was August 1, 2005 when our apartment building caught fire. My Mother, Brother, Sister, and I were home, it was the most distressing thing I've ever had to encounter. The night of my Aunt's birthday a fire started and the smoke made me feel as if I was drowning. My cousin Kendrick Weber woke me up, because I wasn't waking up when my sister tried. He pulled me out through the window and my forehead

Obstacles are designed to give a new perspective on how to overcome a challenge. A challenge you never expected to encounter. One you wish you could just jump over and be done with. The obstacle in my life was no easy jump it was journey of strength, gratitude, and independence. The drawback I encountered my freshman year was a life threatening disease. One that destroyed me both physically and mentally, called Anorexia nervosa. Such a disease takes progress and time to overcome, and took me a year and half to recover from. A year and a half? Why couldn't you just eat more food? These two questions always arise when I tell people my story. However, people don't realize that if recovering from anorexia was as simple as putting more food in

“Huh?” “What?” “Can you repeat that please?” These are all sayings that people in my life have heard me say repeatedly. I had hearing loss that I was born with but didn’t really know about till I started school. At age 6, I took an eye and hearing exam at the school I attended, and they told my parents that they should take me to an audiologist because something was wrong with my hearing. Upon visiting the audiologist, we learned that I have a unilateral hearing loss, which meant that my right ear was nearly perfect, but my left ear had around 50 percent hearing loss. After knowing this information, my parents asked what any good parents would ask; “So what do we do to help her?” The doctor told us since it hadn’t affected my grades and I was able to adjust to the hearing that I had, he wouldn’t suggest getting a hearing aid, but to tell teachers to keep me close to the front and to the side where my stronger ear was to the middle. My parents sought for extra help with my speech and language, but the school didn’t allow it because of how well I was doing in class. So I lived life as normal as could be.

Lymphoma or lymphatic cancer is a very serious and life threatening disease. In this country there is an estimated 63,900 new cases, 7,100 of which are Hodgkin’s lymphoma as opposed to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Since around the 70’s the occurrence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma has almost doubled while the occurrence of Hodgkin’s disease has declined. (Steen, 1993)

To be honest, I feel pretty lucky that I’ve never had to deal with what I would consider a major obstacle or problem. So I hesitate to call this a hardship or obstacle because in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t so bad. I do have asthma, it was pretty severe when I was younger, but it’s much improved now and I will probably grow out of it completely.

Growing up I wanted to be exactly like everyone else, as every kid does. No one wants to endure something that sets them apart from their peers and opens a vulnerability to be taunted. This why I tried my best to keep it a secret from my friends, teachers and coaches that I am completely deaf in my left ear. When I was born, the hospital ran hearing tests on all new infants and they discovered that I could not hear out of my left ear. Over the course of the next few years, my parents tried to find the cause and a cure through additional testing and an MRI, but learned that nothing could be done. Once I started school, I was old enough to realize that I was a little different than other kids my age.

When an obstacle came my way, I was able to identify there was an issue, reach out to those around me, and most importantly stay positive. Everyone was right in their own way. My peers reminded me to have fun, my teacher reminded me to always listen and take notes, and my parents reminded they are there for me. This experience made me think, overcoming obstacles can be challenging for anyone. I am glad I have a good support system. Sometimes the advice I receive may seem like no one understands what I am going through, but I should listen and make the advice work for my situation. Things did not work out right away, but eventually they

There’s a lot we can learn from the stories of our past – if we tell them in such way that enables us to hear what they really have to say. This holds true with me and my life. To put it simply, the life I’ve lived up to this point has been nothing short of a beautiful (and bumpy) roller coaster ride! As I have grown up there have been many factors that have influenced me to take on or do certain things. These things, plus some of my individual choices, have contributed into what’s made me who I am today. And with that, I’m happy to say for this moment in time, I’m satisfied with the person I am and the path I’m taking.

My dad got diagnosed with prostate cancer in early 2014. It was a hard year for my family, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Not even in my worst dreams did I ever see my dad having cancer. The man that I looked up to, and loved to pieces had cancer. I was devastated, I remember crying and being afraid that I was going to lose him to an incurable disease that lurked the lives of many.