Personal Narrative: Diagnosing With Cancer

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.

During my sophomore year, I became depressed and antisocial due to problems in my life. My mother has been sick with a brain tumor since 2009 and she was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2012. It has been very hard on me and especially for my mother. I worry about her because she has shown signs of severe depression, she often talks about that she would rather be dead than alive anymore. After all of the pain, all of the humiliation of not being able to walk well, the embarrassment of not being able to write well, all of the staring and comments I would hear about my mother, she is still strong. After 6 years of pain and suffering along the way, I do not blame her. Everything seems to get worse. She now needs surgery due to avascular necrosis that was caused by many years of chemotherapy. I began to lose motivation slowly because I did not have any friends in any of my classes and I felt like I was stuck in a

“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.

Despite my parent's divorce, I led a contented life. My dad lived in the outskirts of Denver, but his distance never kept him from maintaining an active role in my life. Back in Colorado Springs, I lived with my mom, little sister, and step-father. Growing up, I never felt that I truly fit in with any of my friends or even my family; like almost any other teenager, I felt awkward in my own skin. However, my focus quickly shifted away from myself. In November of 2013, my mother learned that she had Pancreatic Cancer. My bubble of protection from the world's problems promptly burst as I heard the diagnosis. My family did our research only to discover that the statistics were horrifying. The five-year survival rate for someone with any stage

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.

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

This week I was at the Cancer center. On Monday, I followed one of the social workers and she gave me a lot of information about the type of work they do. She gave me a tour around the cancer center where I got to see where the patients go to get their radiation and chemotherapy. We did not get to see any patients today and that was unfortunate because I was excited to see exactly the type of interaction social workers have with the cancer patients. Monday was difficult for me because I would remember about my car being stolen. I had to use a lot of coping skills to prevent me from crying during the day. Being at my internship on Monday was, nonetheless, helpful as it distracted me from my problem. Fortunately, I was called on Monday night

She is one of the new of the new residents at the LTC, it was just a few minutes after lunch, a visiting lab nurse asked me to go check the resident that she asked to used the washroom. So I wheeled her to the to her room, collected all the required equipment needed. The resident didn’t know that she had already soiled herself. I put on my gloves after hand hygiene. The I soaked some clothes with warm water. Then I assisted her in transferring from her wheelchair to the toilet seat. When I pulled down her brief, then we noticed that she has already soiled herself. She felt really bad about it, saying “this has never happened before, I am so sorry” I kept telling her that it's alright that it can happen sometimes, that it is not her fault. She

Anything can happen at any given time. I was determined to know how to care for my family members as well as learn more about the disease itself. So I persuaded school for practical nursing, within this year I had committed to I went through a series of unfortunate events. The first semester I lost a friend to Diabetes Mellitus. She fell into diabetic coma and did not make it out. The second semester yet again I lost another dear friend, this time was suicide. Third and final semester I was already a wreck with what I already was going through then right before my last clinical check off I got hit with bad news. My aunt Terry on my father’s side of the family had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite all the negative events happening in my life I managed to graduate with a 3.5GPA, earned my practical nurse diploma and passed my exam from state boards of nursing.

A very close family member was diagnosed with an incurable illness and was detected late. She came and talked to me after a doctor’s appointment, and shared with me that the doctor informed her that the treatment she is on, is not working and there are only four treatments available to control it only. She had tried three of the four treatments without success. And if the last treatment does not work either, the doctor does not know what approach they would take. Her tears started rolling down her face, and for the first time, I did not have any jokes or words. I was able to see and felt her pain and sorrow; she stopped talking and burst to cry. I hugged her and truly told her that I am so sorry and I will be here to support her. I also said

The world is full of unsolvable problems with undiscovered solutions. There are small problems in the world as well as big problems in the world. A big problem that everyone has been affected by is cancer. Cancer affects the lives of many but, still has no cure. My goal is help others find a cure for cancer even if I play a little part in helping researchers find a cure.