What Is The Day I Lost Someone Most Important In My Life

When my dad came home that evening he sat me down and asked me if I knew what cancer was. I had an idea so I just nodded my head, he went on to tried to explain to me how bad the cancer was that my mom had been diagnosed with. Seeing my dad so afraid scared me. The fear I felt then led me to realize that I needed to try and hide it because it would only hurt my dad more to see his children so upset. I did my best to help, I tucked my little sisters into bed while my mom was away at the hospital, read them stories and did the best I could at preparing snacks to comfort them. After my mom arrived home and she recovered from the surgery she started chemotherapy. The miserable treatment that attacks the cancer also makes her very ill. Every other week she was sick. Before every bad week I wanted to cry, but that wouldn’t help anyone. Lane and Kenna already were crying, if I cried it could only hurt my parents

The fall of 2014 was the absolute worst few months of my life. It started in the middle of September. My dad suddenly one day had a sharp pain in his side. He said he was fine, but my mom was not having that and got him to go to the hospital. The pain passed but that week they set up all kinds of scans to find out what was wrong. They figured out the pain was just gallstones. They thought they could just remove it, but that did not happen. In the same scan they found a mass in his chest. The doctors did not know what it was, so they came up with a few possibilities. A few weeks later, in the middle of October, they scheduled a surgical biopsy. Dr. Wallace, the surgeon, told us there were a few different outcomes from the surgery. I do not remember it all exactly, but I know there was one bad outcome and three others that were curable and they could fix right then and there. If it was one of the three things they could do a whole nother operation right there that day and remove it. The fourth was cancer.

They (my family and doctors), for the first night, weren’t sure if I would make it or not. I was touch and go, because my oxygen level couldn’t be stabilized. I would be on oxygen and my level would be normal, but as soon as they took me off, my level would fall again. However, they had to stabilize me before they could do any kind of surgery. During this time, I think my dad as well as everyone involved got a taste of what it means that any moment, any day could be anyone’s final moment. My dad stayed every night with me. The first night, my heart quit beating twice. The first time, my dad said, “She’s a fighter, she can get through this.”. Then it happened again and my dad fell on his knees saying, “God, please don’t take her now!”. I ended up practically living in SICU for 3½ weeks, just trying to become stable enough, so I could make it somewhere else. Both my mom and dad had to become durable power of attorneys, so they could decide what my treatments would

Most people will experience something horrible in their lives. As a young child, I was ignorant to the idea that bad things could happen in my life. One cold day in November, my Mom said that she was feeling a little sick and had some pain in her neck. After some tests, the doctors came up with a diagnosis, it was devastating. Even after the evidence from X-Rays and MRI scans, my family was trying to find any reason to deny the truth. My Mom, Gricelda Martinez Ozuna, the strongest and most determined person I knew was fading away and I knew my time with her was shortening every passing moment.

Thinking very positive for him I was conceived that with the chemotherapy and the prayer of our community he was going to be cure. In early January my Grandma Odom pick me up from school like she did everyday. After I had got into the van Grandma and Mrs. McDonald walk to the back of the van and talked. I don't think of it until my Grandma had gotten in the van. I could tell by the look on face that something was terribly wrong. I start thinking of people who I love asking my Grandma about difference ones who I was closed to. As we head home we passed be the neighborhood in with Doc. Larry and Mrs. live. It hit me that something was going on with Doc. Larry. I ask Grandma "is it Doc."? She told me that it was Doc. and that he had come home to

Reality set in at this moment and I raced over to my brother and embraced him to let him know everything was ok. He looked up at me and asked me if dad was going to die. I remember fighting back my tears and telling him that our daddy was super strong like a superhero and that he was going to be just fine. After a distressing three hours passed I was finally allowed to go back and see my dad. He was lying in a bed almost lifeless. At that moment, they did not know if he was going to have brain damage or if he was going to live through the night. He was covered from head to toe in blood, cuts, and bruises. I could overhear my mom yelling at a nurse at the station asking why they weren’t doing surgery or helping my dad. The nurse asked her to calm down and explained that the head injury my dad suffered from being thrown into a metal telephone pole was extensive and the doctor was examining the x-rays before they could do

After a while of sitting in my grandparents living room mindlessly playing with my toys I decided to get up. I walked towards the commotion going on in the small hallway connecting the living room to the kitchen. The gathering of people consisted of my mom, dad, grandpa, and grandma. Curious about what was going on I walked over to the group. I reached my mom and looked up to see that her eyes were bloodshot, as if she had been crying. I looked over to my dad and his face, like everyone else's, was grim. During this time I kept hearing one repeating word, cancer. I started to listen more closely to the conversation going on around me because even at the age of seven I knew that cancer was bad news. I listened intently and heard my mom explain how she had colon cancer.

I’m sitting in the passenger seat, parked in front of my home, staring straight out the front window at my house and feeling an antagonizing need to be inside of it in my room curled up in my bed. My mom is speaking next to me, but, I haven’t heard anything since, she said, “I have cancer and so does your grandpa,” meaning two out of the four people I hold dearest could be leaving me, permanently. Later on I piece together the details my mom was telling me in the car, she has ovarian cancer and will have to have a full hysterectomy, assuming it has not spread, and grandpa has stage 4 pancreatic cancer; no hope of treatment or surgery for him. At sixteen years old I stop relying on my mother and older brother for anything, I take to being the

C was accustomed to doing. Little did we know that it was because his bones were weak. Shortly before his death in 2009, Mr. C was diagnosed with bone cancer. I was young so I didn't think much of it. Then one day I came home from school and both of my parents were home which was unusual. My dad looked very sad and was sitting quietly in the living room. I got some food and sat at the dinner table with my mom. The onkly thing she know to say to me simply was "he died today." I wasn't sure what to say or do so I ate my food then went to my room and cried silently. It was his birthday that day. My dad went to go visit him in the hospital to find out that the room had already been

When I turned 11-years-old my whole childhood began to change my life went from being perfect to everything but perfect. One day I came home to hear the news my father, my best friend; my hero was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. Not knowing the struggle my family was about to take on I just began to cry. I had a million things running through my head what’s going to happen? Will everything be okay? Why him? What is going to happen? With all these things rushing through my head all I could do was cry not knowing this was least worse to come.

In October of my sophomore year, my mother sat me down on our couch and told me she had breast cancer. My mother has a habit of spinning terrible news to sound like casual conversation. She said that we would go into this optimistic, hoping for something small or easily handled. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with stage three malignant phyllodes tumors in her right breast. Hearing this, I was devastated. My mother had recently been recovering from a car accident in which she was a pedestrian hit by a speeding vehicle. We had finally finished the multiple surgeries necessary to fix her lower spine, left shoulder, and pelvis. It felt as though we had just come out of that. It seemed unreal that we would have two physical tragedies so close

When I was 8 years old my dad, Héctor Luis Acevedo, was diagnosed with a stage 4 non hodkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that attacks the immune system. I remember the day my parents gave me and my siblings the announcement like it was yesterday. It was May 2010th, they told us at home and then we went to church and that’s when I told my parents I wanted to do my First Holy Communion because I wanted my dad there with me on that special moment. They talked to the priest and they agreed I was going to have my First Holy Communion in May. The doctors here in Puerto Rico told my dad he only had 2 months to live because his cancer was really advanced. It wasn’t until my dad went to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas that they told him his cancer could be treated. My parents where off for a long time and everyone we knew prayed for my dad to get better, they also gave us money to pay for the treatments, and the stay and food which were all crazy expensive, I remember the priest gave my mom like a thousand dollars from the money he had been saving and he told my mom to accept the money because he couldn’t ever hear my dad died because he didn’t have enough money. Well guess what, in two months for my First Holy Communion my dad was already better and almost completely cancer free. I don’t want any kid or parent to go through any of this, that’s why I’m

My father passed away in 1991, two weeks before Christmas. I was 25 at the time but until then I had not grown up. I was still an ignorant youth that only cared about finding the next party. My role model was now gone, forcing me to reevaluate the direction my life was heading. I needed to reexamine some of the lessons he taught me through the years.

It is amazing how your life can change in an instant. On the morning of August 22nd, 2016, I woke up feeling normal. I got my normal clothes on, went to school, and had an okay day. Everything was perfectly fine… until I looked at my phone, and I saw that I got a text from a group chat that was with my Springer Theatre Academy group from the summer that made the ground shift under my feet. The text said “Mr. Ron has been moved into hospice care.” I looked up at my father who could tell something was wrong and quietly said “Oh no…” I had never had someone that I was close to go into hospice, so this was a very overwhelming feeling. I knew that Ron Anderson had been diagnosed with inoperable Stage 4 pancreatic cancer two years before. I had

Lung cancer, those dreadful words embedded into my family's minds forever, as they just rolled off the tongue of the doctor within seconds. It was in February of 2010 when my Grandpa John officially got diagnosed with stage four Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, but by that time it was too late for him. The doctor took a step back, as if he was about to faint when he saw our faces. He stated that there was nothing he could do medically. I looked at the doctor with a state of confusion on my face and in my eyes. I thought nothing? They are just going to let my grandpa die? I was only 11 years old, and that infuriated me. I knew from that moment, I had found what I want to accomplish in my life; to help those in need. Whenever I get stressed or worried