Personal Narrative: My Mother

People tend to usually tremble when hearing the unpleasant word “Cancer”. Imagine being the one diagnosed with this horrible illness. More and more people in today’s society are struck with certain health issues such as diabetes, obesity, heart diseases and many more. Cancer is the at the top of this horrible chain of problems. Based on my experiences, someone that is diagnosed with cancer, does not realize how life can change so rapidly for them. Their whole lifestyle changes and they have a different outlook on life. Not until a person experiences a family member going through cancer, is he/she able to understand how important spending time with family really is.

When people think of cancer, many automatically murmur negative things. For example, death, Chemotherapy, hair loss, and other symptoms of feeling fragile. What people do not know is that even though you can see the patient suffering physically, their family is also being affected as well. Being a daughter of a mother with Colon cancer has affected me emotionally, spiritually, and virtually.

‘I don’t want to lose her,’ I kept repeating in my head trying to look strong for her. I was trying to not show how scared I was, trying to stop bursting into tears the second I saw her in the state she was. She was so weak and there was nothing I could do to help, except stay out of the doctor’s way. There were nurses and doctors rushing around and giving me a strange look until realization dawned on them. I was at the hospital with my mom around 10 at night, in my pajamas, wondering what was going to happen to her and if she was going to be okay.

When most people think of Christmas, they think of family, presents, and happiness. Christmas day in 2012 was very different for Phoenix and his family. At just seventeen months old, Phoenix became a patient at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis Tennessee. He was diagnosed with bilateral retinoblastoma, a cancerous tumor that affects the eyes. Five year old Phoenix had no control over his eyes, and the average child should have full control by age one. After months of undergoing chemotherapy, Phoenix’s cancer was in remission. “Physically he’s doing good, emotionally he’s doing good”, said Pamela. “I know St. Jude is the reason he has both his eyes. I tell everyone everywhere I go, St. Jude is amazing. I know God has to be in the midst of it. I don’t think I would have my grandson if we had not gotten to St. Jude” (Qtd. in St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital).

Although she did not create this organization, she was able to show people that Cancer does not force anyone to give up his or her dreams. Lauren was able to play on Mount St. Joseph’s division three women’s basketball team, and she founded Club 22 which benefits The Cure Starts Now foundation (“Lay Up For Lauren”, 2015). Although she did not win her battle with cancer, she was able to raise awareness to this incredible

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood” –Marie Curie. Every year people are affected by cancer. Living with cancer is hard on all involved with any person that has cancer. They will need all the support they can get even if it’s just a phone call to say hi. Don’t feel sorry or pity the person. Instead do things that can cheer them up asking how they’re doing and ask if you can do anything for them. Many find going to support groups helpful to accept the fact they have or lost someone to cancer. The awareness does show favoritism toward to

My interviewee is a second generation immigrant with one parent who was born in El Salvador and the other who has Mexican roots but was born in the United States. For the purposes of confidentiality my interviewee will be addressed as Ana from here on out. In this interview paper I will discuss the experiences that Ana faced growing up in a tri-racial household. I will also evaluate her experiences regarding assimilation to the lectures and reading assigned through out this course.

This past summer, I, along with my mother and father, travelled to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. My mom had been invited to participate in the St. Jude For Life Study because when she was around six to eight years old, she had a form of leukemia called Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. This particular study is to help all present and future St. Jude patients and help to research for a cure. While there, I saw first-hand how cancer can affect a family. You can just see all of the stress, the worry, the exhaustion, the tiredness, the fear, and the tears on the families’ and the patients’ faces.

When I was twelve years old, a close family friend of mine named Evan (who was my age) was diagnosed with brain cancer. At that age, I hadn’t been introduced to death and nor did I really know or understand what cancer was or that it was possible for people so young to die. Before his death at age thirteen, my sister and I would spend a lot of time with him playing videogames, watching movies and swimming in his backyard pool. We watched the process of Evan losing his hair, having cancer treatments, doing physiotherapy and becoming very weak and fragile and rejecting treatments.

When Jim Lansciardi’s father passed away several years ago, he had set up fund in his memory. He figured that he would probably do the same thing for his mother but had not decided where. It was his mother’s and his own experience at Virginia Mason that convinced him. Jim’s mother, Marilyn, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August of 2011. Marilyn Lansciardi was a vivacious woman who loved her family. She also loved to sing and dance; she would light up a room with her infectious personality. Likewise, her sense of humor never failed her and she was making jokes until the moment she passed away in April of 2014.

A 3-year-old girl Ellie Walton is suffering from brain tumor, and is getting love and support from all over the world through postcards sent by strangers.

Alexus Casidy is out of her teenage years and now twenty, with a whole life ahead. The name Alexus may be a common but, the story of how it was picked, was not. Her father named her after a nurse at a Psychiatric Hospital, that he said was pretty. Not only did he name her after a nurse but, he chose the spelling of the car, Alexus. She grew up with her two younger siblings in Beloit WI, and I am yet to wonder if her sibling’s names have a comical story behind theirs as well. My peer went to high school at Beloit Memorial, graduating in 2015. Where she was an active cheerleading and softball player, also where she met her boyfriend, of three years, Ryan. Most don’t see that she is a mother, student, girlfriend, and employee; holding many different roles in all statuses. Alexus studies at UW Rock County and is undecided with fulfilling her dreams for becoming a children’s nurse or a teacher. Also, is hard-working employee at the factory Prent Corporation in Janesville, WI as an Inspector Packer. Where the money pays for the house her and her boyfriend own, with their one year old, Brooks.

“We were led into an examining room, where a nurse instructed my mother to remove her shirt and put on a cotton smock with strings that dangled at her sides. When my mother had done so, she climbed onto a padded table with white paper stretched over it. Each time she moved, the room was on fire with the paper ripping and crinkling beneath her. I could see her naked back, the small curve of flesh beneath her waist. She was not going to die. Her naked back seemed proof of that. I was staring at it when the real doctor came into the room and said my mother would be lucky if she lived a year. He explained that they would not attempt to cure her, that she was incurable. There was nothing that could have been done, he told us. Finding it so late was common, when it came to lung cancer,” (Strayed, 11).

Cancer has been a part of my life since I was younger. My grandma and aunt were diagnosed and luckily, they both won their battles. Unfortunately, not everyone is as lucky. My best friend’s mother was diagnosed when she was extremely young and she did not even know what the word cancer meant. She had no idea one word could cause someone

After my mother and I have an argument she usually smiles at me and says, it’s because we’re so much alike that we argue. She reminds me that our lack of communicating often stirs more trouble than why we were arguing. I used to get upset that my mom didn’t set time aside for our family to spend time together or make us eat together at the dinner table. I was upset because I was comparing our family to my friends’ families. I valued those things and assumed my mom didn’t, but I was wrong. My mom had so much on her mind everyday it was breaking her on the inside. Not only had I wanted my mom to be like my friend’s moms, now I had wanted my mom to be different because she was depressed. Bonhoeffer mentions that we desire images of others that we want, but aren’t the true image they bear as Christ’s (pg37-38). At first I was puzzled. How is a good image of mine, not Christ’s image for her? I learned that His image is neither right nor wrong, but simply uniquely divine. My mom could have done those things, but her whole life would have had to be different, and I would never want to change who my mom is.