What I Was The Call From The Doctor Of Tell Me It Was Cancer

Nobody expects to get cancer. You just see it happen around you, and never think twice about it coming into your life. Until it does. In October 2016 my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had it before the previous winter and there was only a 5% chance of it coming back. And when it did, I was devastated. My mom is a very joyful person, she always sees the good in the bad. The hope in the hopeless. The Light in the dark. But this time around

Cancer has one of the biggest effects on the patients mental health but also the patients loved ones and friends. It is one of the hardest things to get a grip on when the doctor tells someone that they have cancer and a fifty-fifty chance of making it. "The disease can bring many changes-in what people do and how they look, in how they feel and what they value" (Dakota 4). It makes people look at the world and their lives in a different way, valuing now what they took for granted and seeing the bigger picture in every scenario. It is something that no one can actually brace, even after the doctor tells them. Through it all though, the person must remain strong and optimistic because the cancer can affect the person's moods and in return affect the outcome of the person and the chances of their making it

It was a typical day in the McDougal household; my sister was acclimating to college life, my annoying little brother was pushing my buttons, and my only worry was whether I was going to pass my next bio test. My dad was getting ready for a business trip to Singapore but decided to stop by the doctors for a quick checkup for his abdomen. Scans came back showing that the bump on his belly button was metastasized Stage IV Liver Cancer. I was completely devastated and couldn’t comprehend how my role model could have so much chaos inside of him. It took weeks before I could go a day without crying as I thought about my future without one of my biggest supporters. It seems for every glimmer of hope for a new treatment, a new, insurmountable brick wall appears when the scans show the treatment’s failure. As cliché as it sounds, every day truly is a rollercoaster; some days better than others. However, we slowly have adapted to this new reality and have truly understood that falling down is a part of life, but getting back up is living.

In researching this subject I was able to interview a parent, Johari Evans, of a six year old boy, Rodney Burton III, who is suffering from Hodgkin 's Lymphoma. Ms. Evans shared with me some of the coping tools she used in hope that others can benefit when faced with a similar situation. We talked about how having cancer affects a child and the family in their everyday lives. Ms. Evans expressed how important it is to be able to access informational sites, self-help manuals and hospital based workshops to learn coping skills and positive ways of dealing with such sadness. She also helped me understand emotional mindset of a parent and how she is able to help both of her children cope with the situation.

As I entered our home, J.P. was on the phone with his family. His tearfully conversation told me he had terminal cancer. Under this circumstance J.P. was uncertain of the type of cancer diagnosed. Attending a follow up appointment we were informed he had staged 4 terminal Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer. I cried with him for a short time. Knowing that our son Jason would be home soon from high school. We pulled ourselves together to give Jason the diagnosis. Our faith journey towards healing began that evening.

Being diagnosed with a terminal disease will shock any person, but when you have to tell a child, it really changes your perspective. Little kids bounce back from a lot of things, but it is their support system that gets them there.

My dad got diagnosed with prostate cancer in early 2014. It was a hard year for my family, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Not even in my worst dreams did I ever see my dad having cancer. The man that I looked up to, and loved to pieces had cancer. I was devastated, I remember crying and being afraid that I was going to lose him to an incurable disease that lurked the lives of many.

She was diagnosed this past spring. I have been lucky enough not to have any major health diagnoses in my family before this, so the news was hard to take. I was

This past summer changed my life. My health was more substantial in the past three months than it has been my entire life. Cancer is something that impacts everyone's life in one way or another, and this summer it was my own personal experience. Something that I never thought would happen to me did. After finding a lump on my neck I proceeded to go to the doctor expecting to be diagnosed with mono or some other flu like sickness. But after seeing the concerned look on my doctors face I quickly realized that it wasn't simply mono. A biopsy was ordered after countless inconclusive tests. The chairman of radiologist told me and my family that he was 95% sure that the swollen lymph node on my neck was cancer. After a long 4 days not knowing what the true results were I lie awake at night thinking about what the rest of my life will look like. Things that I have never thought about crossed my mind like: Can I have children? These 4 days was by far the longest of my life. I could not stop my mind from racing: Will I be able to graduate from high school? These four days I changed everything about the way that I acted. I spend less time on my cell phone and more time outside by the lake feeling the

I cannot describe what I felt when my mom told me she had cancer. I was sad, I was scared; I did not even know if I felt anything. My mom, however, stayed positive and hopeful while I stayed quiet and seemingly apathetic. There was an obvious ironic contrast between the emotional state of me and the woman who actually had cancer.

I have travelled the world and I’m working on my degree. All long term effects of my disease have been mild to the point of negligibility, and I am truely grateful that I have not passed any of the traits down to my daughter. Luckly a father passes down few genetic markers. Looking back now at this point I have come to some realizations about my own parents. I now can see the deep fear they must have felt. The possibility of losing your child is something no one wants to face. The strength my mother and father had to have is astounding. They uprooted our family to follow my treatment. They never asked for outside help they believed they could handle anything life had to throw at them. When retelling this story to me they would recant the multiple doctors they took me too, all of the experts they saw and the surgeons they met with, all to find answers and pursure treatments. My father would tell of the surgeries he witnessed and the sleepless nights after, my mother would tell of the time she spent bundled in hospital chairs at my bedside waiting for days to see me wake-up. They took everything in, all that life threw at them and stood against it. They permeated their character with the idea that I would never feel weak or different. That I would grow up healthy and experience a full life. A parent's strength is unlike any other. I think that I am just now getting an idea of what that means to me, and what it will mean to me later. My love for my own perfect daughter has no bounds but even then, I hope that my strength is never tested like my parents was for

I felt as if I wouldn’t been able to enjoy my senior year, hang out with my friends and my family or other stuff as a growing teenager. Being diagnosed made me change a lot of my ways and to become a strong minded person and to really keep my focus on God and to truly thank him everyday for keeping me here. I honestly don’t know how many times I have been in and out of many hospitals or ambulances. I had a lot of people on my side due to the fact that I was just a young girl going through a lot of pain and pressure at a young age. My family and friends has always been on my side and I thank them everyday, without them I really don’t know where I would have been. It changed me because I was soon turning eighteen making me legal to sign off paperwork and other stuff myself. I couldn’t depend on my parents or my family members to talk to the doctors for me I had to open my mouth and start talking for myself. Nobody knew how I felt except for me, myself, and I. I now go to appointments, sign paperwork, and refill my own medicine all by myself. With me going through this everyday and continuing to I now know not to take anything or anyone for granted and that anything can happen in the blank of an

It was about to become a horrible day. My sister and I sat in the doctor’s office, nervous but hopeful. We listened as he gave us the result of the tests, a large, inoperable cancerous mass was the cause of my young nephew’s dizziness, blurred vision and headaches. We just sat there looking at each other in disbelief. We were just told that my quiet, kind, gentle nephew was going to die.

The doctors told us that mom would be in the hospital for about a month during her first chemo treatment. This news was overwhelming. Not having my mom at home for over a month scared me. I wondered how our family was going to stay strong without mom. She did so many things for all of us. Who would

In 2013, my mother was very ill and had to travel interstate for life saving treatment. It was a very long year, and it forced the development of my independence and self-direction, given my family’s focus on my Mum’s illness.