Personal Narrative: How Cancer Has Affected My Life

At the age of eleven, I thought the world was full of candy and rainbows. But then, a big event happened in my life. It is a moment that will never be forgotten. As the event is full of burden in a despondent way, I realized but bad things will and can come your way, but you have to remain positive.

Everyone hears the word “Cancer” and automatically thinks death? Imagine being told you have cancer a month before Christmas and having to start chemotherapy right away. That was me at age 16 barely a junior in High School, they say high school is supposed to be a great experience. And it was at the beginning which was my freshman and sophomore year. I was that girl athlete with lots of friends who went day by day not caring about my health I would eat lots of junk food and stay up late at night. I come from a Hispanic family single parent my mom and 4 siblings 3 girls and one boy. Two had already gotten married and there was only 3 left at home including me. My mom would work out in the fields so sometimes she 'd come home late, therefore

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.

“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.

“We can’t go out tonight. I already told you that.” Cali told her best friend Caleb now very annoyed.

There is nothing anyone could have done. My sister didn’t mean to get cancer, and she couldn’t have stopped it from growing. I just wish things had happened differently and that my entire family wouldn’t be turned away from me now.

When I was in 6th grade my Aunt Dana was fighting cancer, and had been for 3 ½ years, I supported her all the way through it. So we held a rally in Thompsonville to support her and show her how much she meant to all of us, and that if she could fight cancer and get up every morning knowing it could be her last than we can get up and fight our battles. She was my light in a very dark tunnel.

Have you ever feel like luck is not by your side.? That’s how I felt for many years. The environment in which I was raised shaped me into a resilient person and I’m thankful for that because I survived both cancer and my parents’ divorce.

I sat there cold and motionless, not even the sun on that warm summer day could bring me to life. “There is nothing left to do. This is the end.” The words played continuously in my head like a broken record. I had to find the willpower to stand, walk back into the hospital, and say my final goodbye to my mom.

Have you ever felt so broken and lost that you believed you simply couldn’t keep going on in life, as if the barriers of your life caved in and suffocated the very existence in which you lived? This pain was all that I knew in the months following my grandfather’s loss to cancer in July of 2008. Fighting until his dying breath, it was a moment in my life that rocked and shattered my heart like fragile glass. His death required me to adapt to and appreciate life and showed me that no obstacle is to big overcome if you maintain hope and a positive outlook.

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.

Being a cancer survivor presents many persistent challenges. Despite those challenges, I graduated high school with honors. Hope for an uncertain future comes in part from the salvation I find in being a college student.

At the budding age of six years old I met my lifelong stalker. It’s quite ironic since we had such a thriving relationship in the beginning. We were attached to one another by the hip, and I grew so comfortable with her that sometimes I forgot she was there. She accompanied me to school, extracurricular activities, sports practices, and slept over nearly every night. One day this former best friend of mine knocked on my front door and ambushed me as soon as I cracked open the door hinges. She began hitting, kicking, and tearing my body apart until I could barely breathe. I tried to resist her, but before I was conscious again my brunette lox was shaved off until I was left completely bald. Tears trickled down my face as I noticed my childhood memories would be destroyed for eternity. As the reader you are probably questioning who would do such a thing, so I’ll tell you her name: Childhood 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,

A woolen blanket. A thick one, so thick that if you climbed under it, it would be hard to breathe. Now it is wet, a lingering dampness that won't go away no matter how much you want it to. The dampness leads to a chill, and the chill works into your bones. You would be so much warmer without the blanket, but it's too heavy to throw off. That is depression. When I was six years old, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. I lived every day with tears in my eyes as my mother lived in pain and could not bring herself to eat or drink. I longed for her suffering to subside and for her to rebuild her strength and act like her joyful self again. However, that never happened. On March 9th, 2009, she lost her battle with cancer. After she died, I