Personal Note On My Identity Moratorium Ended Up Costing Me

Growing up the main question a child is asked is, “What do you want to be when you grow up? “ , and most kids respond saying a doctor, lawyer, or a cop. In reality not everyone sticks to their first idea, and it’s slim that they actual start working in the chosen career. In my case, I have always wanted to work as a social worker or a therapist, but I realized it wasn’t in my budget. Therefore, I have decided; as well as, grew interest in being a dental assistant for a pediatric office.

My mom instantly went through four intense chemotherapy treatments. I would miss class, school events, and visits with friends to sit with her through her three-hour chemotherapy sessions. When we came home from therapy, she would sleep a lot, and I was sure to be there by her side through it all.

Finding the career of my dreams or as some would put it “my calling” has been a rather difficult task. It is always hopeful that someone would discover what they are called to do in their younger years (elementary-high school) so they have plenty of time for planning out there career map but then there are those who are pulled in different directions…like myself. When I started my college career in 2007, I just did what seemed to be the norm. To make a long story short, I started as a nursing major and ended up graduating 5 years later with two totally different degrees, a Child Life degree as well as a Family and Community Services degree with a concentration in early intervention. In this economy, finding a job with two fairly non-specific

Throughout my life, I’ve wanted to be many things. An astronaut, a princess, a doctor, a lawyer, and at one point in my life the president. Now that I am older and much more mature. I still haven’t decided what I wanted to be. When I first started my high school career, I was terrified. I didn’t know what I wanted to be. So I decided to try new things. I’ve been with choir ever since I was in the sixth grade, so I thought I would give it shot, and try something new. I started to take drama and art. I soon found out, that I wasn’t great at either of those things. I had stage fright and I sucked at drawing. But, I didn’t give up. I stayed with choir, drama, art, and basketball. Now that I am a senior and ready to graduate, I have found out I

Cancer has played a huge role in my life recently. It started when dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer when I was a junior in high school. He tried to remain strong and act like he wasn’t scared, but you could tell he was terrified and depressed. On a few occasions I went with him to his radiation treatments and I was immediately impressed with the radiation therapists. They were always smiling, and trying to make the worst time of some people’s life better. When my dad talks about his cancer experience he always talks about how much of a positive impact his radiation therapist had.

Being diagnosed with cancer has impacted my outlook on life in many different ways. At first I saw cancer as a burden on my life and only the negative attributes stood out on how it was going to change my life and the way I saw people around me, but now after being two years cancer free, I have gone to realize the positive aspects cancer has had on my life.

When I spoke to the Doctor, she recommended that we have surgery, not knowing if they would diagnose the disease as advanced as my Mom. I was scared, not knowing what the outcome would be. I was just forty-nine years old, and I prepared myself for a fight and battle; I wasn’t going to let this disease win. Preparing for the treatments and keeping a positive attitude was my survivor tool. After surgery, my cancer was diagnosed as stage one and the tumor being very minuscule. The Doctor recommended for me to have 30 radiation treatments and no chemo ordered. Every day, I would wake up and say to myself “yes I am going to stay active and positive and beat this disease”. In Geneva where I live there is a facility called the Living Well Cancer Resource Center; I would drive past it daily not knowing that this facility would be part of my life for the next six months. I was recommended to check out the support cancer group meetings they held. I attended my first session by myself, and I also started my radiation treatments the same week. I never attended any type of support groups or addiction meetings, so I didn’t know what to expect. The meeting started off with a panel of ladies who are all cancer patients or cancer survivors. We each took our turn to introduce ourselves and talk about what cancer you been diagnosed with, and how long you been going for

My parents told me that I was going to start chemotherapy and that I had to have surgery to put my port in. They said that I would have to stay in the hospital for a while and that I would feel really sick. On december 16,2007 I checked into Children’s hospital in Boston. I figured out what cancer was a couple of months later. I was not a big fan of shots but they gave several of them daily. The worst thing about being in a hospital is that there is nothing you can do to improve your situation. I got used to taking pills because they would give me multiple every day. The worst part about cancer was the fact that I lost my hair.During my beginning phases of Cancer I was told to miss school. I ended up missing 5 months of school while in the first grade. The principle wanted to hold me back a year but my teacher said that I was so advanced that I was able to move to the seond grade anyway.In November of 2008 the Make A Wish foundation granted me my wish of going to Disney World. I had never been outside of Massachusetts so going to Florida as a big deal for me. I had also never been on a plane and people say that your ears start to hurt so I was pretty

Cancer affected my life after losing my auntie on December 30, 2015. We were told there were a treatment that’ll have her well again but it was false advertisement. Before she passed she motivated me to enroll in the army and start a healthy career. I learned that even at your worst you should have a good heart. Cancer come from an over productive cell also smoke can be a reason. There are some people who caught cancer because of wrong diagnoses treatments.

She was under the strong impression that I was not going to survive. Crying with her and my husband, given support and positive feedback was the best medicine I ever received. As for breast cancer, when I was released to go back to work, everyone, or so I thought, were surprised I even returned. Mostly doctors, from the clinic were ecstatic that I survived. That was a total surprise and it gave me a warm feeling to know they missed me. Unlike my office, I was another body to do their work.

I struggled a lot in doing my role as a mother to my children ….a daughter to my parents …a friend to those around me. Sometimes I had to stay with my mother at the hospital when she was getting sick while I was suffering from the chemo’s side effect (Sahara).

I wanted to be a traditional studio artist for a while but I was disuaded when I learned about just how hard it is to find success. I then wanted to be an art teacher. I at first wanted to teach little kids art as I could teach them about how fun it was to just sit and draw but at the same time I wanted to challenge people to think more abstractly or at the very least, to think more creatively, so I began considering doing art for older kids. Then I just figured out I’m not very personable or very patient to teach kids, of any age really. I began considering entirely different careers to follow, like a historian for example, but that was when I discovered video games. I’ve played video games before but I didn’t really figure that they were as complex upon initial inspection. What I mean is I looked at video games for a while as little more than maybe a board game and my line of thinking was “Well, people don’t have businesses like Monopoly Inc. or The Candyland Co. and i’ve never heard of any of the companies that popped up on the screens before the title card so ya.”

There were three experiences that shaped my response to my topic, two of which I have described in detail in my planning document. As for the third experience, it occurred quite recently, hence why I haven’t addressed it, since I still need time to organize my thoughts on what had transpired. As I am no expert, I researched prior to writing my poem by reading through survivor stories and combining it into one, with my personal exposure with cancer to aid it. Overall, I would say that despite the fact that I knew very little, however through writing this poem I have learned considerably more.

My first semester, I chose elementary education as my major, but started to feel that wasn’t a good fit for me. After getting accepted into the art department, I changed my major to visual arts dreaming of a career as an artist. I spent the spring of 2015 immersed in art, and while I love BSU’s art program, I began to question whether art is really a career choice or more of a hobby for me. Again I was left wondering what I should do with my life and education.

I grew up on a small farm in a small town. My parents are both educators at the school I grew up in. To my surprise my parents were not thrilled when I told them I had a passion for education. Their first words to me were, “are you sure,” “don’t you think you are wasting your intelligence,” and “you’re not going to make very much money.” This was discouraging coming from the two people I thought I would look up to going into my future career. I was at a loss for some time, until I sat down with my grandfather one day after church. He asked me if I had decided what I wanted to do after college. To this I replied, I want to be a teacher. Expecting the same response as my