Personal Narrative: My Cousin's Battle With Cancer

A few years back, life threw a curve ball at my family. My mom had been diagnosed with cancer. Skin cancer to be more exact. She was diagnosed with Melanoma which is the only skin cancer that is deadly. This experience taught me to always help others and when one faces a challenge, never back down.

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.

During the 2016-2017 academic year, I will continue to work as a waitress at Biwako Sushi and volunteer at the University of Michigan Hospital.

There is no mincing of words, nor is there a phrase with gentle connotations to adequately articulate the emotional, psychological or physical place that cancer forces upon you. Quite frankly, battling cancer sucks. The individual engaged in the battle and their support system can choose to crumble or rally. To crumble is to become angry and resentful. To rally is to rise up and use your experiences to help others. I was fortunate that my support group didn’t give me an option to crumble. I was raised in a family, in a church community that focuses on service. So, at 14 battling cancer, I was told that the only way out was through and to get through the turmoil of cancer, I was expected to find a “cancer” mentor and find a way to give back.

“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.

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.

More than 50,000 people died in 2015 due to cancer, homicides, and drunk driving. Year of 2015 is the year that opened my eyes to what’s going on with the world’s current society. Cancer, homicides, and drunk driving are things I see as wrongful deaths. Others may see it as a misconception.

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.

During the 2007 I got great news, I was accepted at UNC-Charlotte. Meanwhile, I had no idea 2007 my world would be turned upside down with bad news. My mother’s broth and sister were both diagnosis with Cancer. What’s most painful both siblings pasted away six months apart? Meanwhile, more bad news came my way when I mother was diagnosis with Cancer and Renal failure. I talked to my mother’s medical team, they voice they never seen where three siblings having cancer all at once in the same year, just months apart. Consequently, my mother survived her cancer just after two chemo treatments. I came home every weekend to help with her care. One promise to my mother I made was not to drop out of school, it was important to her that I finished

I woke up on Christmas morning to the sweet smell of coffee coming from down the hall. I jump up with excitement put my red fluffy slippers on and make my way to the kitchen telling myself that today is going to be an unforgettable day.

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.

When I found out that my mother had cancer, I was in shock and did not know how to take everything in. She decided that her being diagnosed with cancer will be the best thing that ever happened to her, not the worst. At 37 years old my mother was diagnosed with stage I breast cancer. She discovered the cancer at a very early stage, which was very lucky and satisfying to hear. The way my mother discovered she had, it was an insane experience for the both of us. She started having pain in November of 2016 in her left armpit; she did not think of it as such a vast deal so she just ignored it. Nevertheless the pain got worse over time and eventually she went to see a doctor.

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

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