November 21, 2003: The sound of a siren wailing, racing toward the hospital in order to transfer my immobilized body, weak and frail, to the University of California, San Francisco. On arrival to UCSF I had been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a type of cancer that attacks the white blood cells in the bone marrow. Thankfully the cancer was discovered rather quickly which prevented it from spreading to other parts of the body; however, I had to endure the long five years of chemotherapy.
The chemotherapy included taking countless pills that would cause me to be bald, emotional, and produce warts on my fingers. The weeks not spent in the hospital were mostly spent at school, where I was marked as “different” or “not normal” because of the side effects of the medication. The way that I was excluded from activities has only encouraged me to become better, it has allowed me perceive greatness and gave me the confidence to believe in myself and not be concerned about think of me. My body may have been fragile but my will to continue was still strong, and I was determined to get rid of my abnormality, that separated me from the others.
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It was a dream of mine to partake in normal child activities, but psychologically I wasn’t the same. My cancer had disappeared but not the memories, or my persistence and tenacity. After the chemotherapy I began to find the wonders in science, and decided to become an engineer. My persistence gave me the goal to achieve the status of engineer so I may help others who may not be able to help themselves or improve daily life through science. Cancer hasn’t just left me with memories and scars, instead it gave me the tenacity to overcome any situation comes my way. If cancer hasn’t stopped me yet, then nothing will stop me from becoming an
I might always have health issues, and I may not ever be able to relax. However, that struggle and that desire to overcome has inspired me not only to get back to the person I was before the surgeries, but to better myself because of it. It’s that drive that inspires me to stay up studying well after the sun has set, to endure the pain during my physical therapy sessions, and most importantly to see that everyone must overcome adversity no matter how much it may affect their life. I see the way my mother put her entire universe on hold to care for me, and how agonizing that must have been to watch her daughter nearly slip away. I see the little girl with the plaid comforter, she was so tough, hoisting a smile onto her face when the rest of her body was in so much pain.
The author of the story introduces a young girl named Rachel who was diagnosed with Leukemia, a cancer of the blood. She immediately starts chemotherapy in hopes of surviving this deadly disease but is soon faced with the harsh reality that she will soon die. Rachel made the hard choice to stop treatment and let her body run its course. “By the way, when someone stops cancer treatment and you point out that this is a decision to die, everyone freaks out at you”(Andrews 244). Rachel’s choice to allow death is a choice that the audience can’t begin to understand.
The essay, Finding my Cancer Style, by Suleika Jaouad discusses the balance of battling with a disease, such as leukemia. The balance as in preparing for the devastations and treatments, as well as the tragic experiences that are to take place with this huge style. I personally feel as if Jaouad’s message portrayed, in this essay, refers closely to the idea of coping with stress in the society we have today. She is saying that gaining inspiration for the dominant traits from one's tough explorations can give that person new strengths. So by reading this essay, someone can learn that through events that they may think are the toughest, there is always positive ways to cope with the problems; so never give up and find new positives.
I couldn’t move my legs. I couldn’t move my hands. My family took me to the hospital and from there I was admitted as patient. As a little girl I was always very optimistic. Becoming a patient meant no more school and no more homework.
The peak of these illnesses came during one of the most important and stressful times in my high school career, junior year. I suddenly lost two of my grandparents, my parents were going through a divorce, which caused me to move out of my childhood home and into a new house with my mother and little brother, and I watched my father struggle with an illness. Fortunately, I was able to recover with the help of doctors, friends, and family. Through this experience, I learned I find the most happiness and contentment by keeping myself busy with things to benefit others and when I can use my expertise while contributing to a group or project. The happiness I have found while bringing the gift of community to those in need of it, through my service projects, is unlike any happiness I have ever felt before.
In a life changing year and a half, my mother went through radiation treatments and multiple surgeries. After her first surgery and a few weeks into radiation treatments my mother became gravely ill. She struggled to get out of bed and every day became a battle. When my brother and I could get away from school we would wait in the hospital with her. Her health
In early August of 2009, I embarked on a long drive from the beautiful state of Virginia to the more homey state of Alabama. My grandfather, Benjie Norris, had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and was given months to survive. My mother had been traveling back and forth from Virginia to Alabama, so it was decided that the family should go on and move to Alabama in order to be closer to family. Being only a sixth grader, it was hard to grasp the concept of moving to an unfamiliar place. Moving to Alabama has been a beneficial life experience thanks to family, friends, and strong spiritual atmosphere of the area.
A few months after the diagnosis, the disease was manageable and I was able to live my riveting 14-year-old life. Two years later, I had relapsed for the fourth time and stuck in a brightly-colored hospital room once again. The three weeks I spent there proved to be even more difficult than the initial struggle. Through my anxiety-ridden thoughts and the never-ending tubes and needles, I felt powerless and was unable to imagine myself seamlessly entering my junior year of high school.
Growing up surrounded by several people in the medical field, I had always pondered what I would be when I grew up. When I was about eight years old, I was determined to grow up and be a cardiologist, just like my uncle. At a young age, I was fascinated by the heart, it interested me that one thing controlled so much in the human body. However that dream changed as I grew older, as much as I would love being the one to save someone’s life, I realized that responsibility was entirely too much for me. I have had many different dreams about my future; such as being a basketball player, a teacher, and even a model.
It’s beyond a battle to make the best of my life with chronic illness. “Life is just not fair.” I am not always able to make plans because I don’t know if I will be able to follow through. I don’t know what the future holds because I have to take life as it comes. I can only be hopeful, and I am.
I have encountered a number of health issues, which have hindered my abilities to partake in many activities. As a naturally driven person, it was very difficult to accept the fact that, amongst other things, my schooling was being put at a standstill. I have blamed myself for the past few months, despite what everyone has told me: “it's not your fault,” “you couldn't control it,” “it's okay,” etc. I often question the actuality of what has developed over this past year, and I wonder “whether I could have altered the outcome?” However, as challenging as my life has been, I have come to accept that things do not always go as planned, and that you must always persevere.
Body A. Mom’s Cancer 1. Her first surgery was on June 3rd, 2015, to get her port put in for chemo. I had never seen my mom in so much pain before, but she kept saying how lucky she was that she didn’t have it nearly as bad as other people. The doctor said 6 months of chemo, a double mastectomy, and then it would all be over. That would have been a great ending, but it didn’t quite end up like that.
The prompt for this essay is quite simple: write about how your involvement in sports, community service, leadership, academics, and other extracurricular activities have affected your overall character. However, I feel as though this essay would be better if focused on my career in lacrosse and how it’s changed my life over the past five years, helping me throughout the good and bad, the simple and the challenging. Lacrosse has been a part of my life for about five years now. I started playing when I was in fourth grade, simply because I wanted to branch out and try something new, exciting, and a little bit out of my comfort zone.
Through the course of his treatments and convalescence I have learned that listening and the understanding of the condition, greater outweighs the physical act of recovery. This has provided me with the skills to become a more confident, care-provider and teacher to make any child succeed. Currently I am undergoing training to become a Friendship Volunteer for Independent Age. Again, this I hope underlines qualities that I have. I also possess excellent communication skills, I am a good listener and I can understand and share the feelings of others.
This clinical experience has really helped me to sharpen my communication skills and realize just how important it is to understand mental health. We are told multiple times in class that mental health issues can be seen on any floor and that is the truth. I’ve seen patients in my older adult clinical on the pulmonary floor suffer from issues that range from anxiety to bipolar disorder and depression. Being able to understand how to approach people that suffer from these types of illnesses, allows us, the nurses, to give the patient the best care that we can. It helps to build a trusting relationship and get to know them on a personal level.