Surviving? Cancer

Let me start this off by saying IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE CANCER TALK TO A DOCTOR AND GET TREATMENT. Now that that’s over with let me continue, I am 16-years-old and I hate school. But then again who doesn’t? I also have major anxiety problems (yaaay)! I’ve had anxiety for as long as I remember and they were always at their worst the night before school started. My stomach would hurt, I would puke, and I couldn’t sleep. That has happened ever since I went to the 3rd grade.

4th Grade

My fourth grade year, I hated going to school. I was terrified of everything and anything. I was pretty smart, so it wasn’t the education part that I hated, but the social part. I didn’t have many friends. And the ones that I did have weren’t really my friends, more like acquaintances. Every day I would come home crying because I didn’t want to go back. So up until then, that was the worst year of my life.

That Summer

The summer after my fourth grade, I was always tired so I didn’t want to go outside and play. However on vacations to Sea World, when I was outside, my nose and gums would bleed, which wasn’t uncommon that summer, but we blamed it on the sun and the heat. I had fevers very often and my skin would bruise easily. Also, I always felt sick.

The Night Before 5th Grade

As always, I was throwing up, my stomach hurt, and I couldn’t sleep. Except this time, everything felt amplified. I felt like I was going to pass out, my nose was bleeding but we blamed it on stress, and I couldn’t even hold myself up because I felt so lightheaded. Once again, my mom blamed it on school. And the reasoning on why everything was worse? “You just had a really bad year and you think it’s going to be the same.”

Finding Out

I went to school, sick and all, but I was frequently going to the nurse's office. I always missed classes and I was falling behind in class. My mom didn’t know why I was still so sick so she decided to take me to the ER. When we were waiting I was throwing up and my nose was bleeding a lot. When I got in, they had me pee in a cup, they took my blood, and all of that stuff. My doctor came back and started to tell my mom that they need to do either a pet or a cat scan (I don’t remember), but they put me in this machine that looked like a rocket ship. When I came back to my room I was really tired so I went to sleep. I woke up to my mom talking to the doctor and the doctor was telling my mom that I had way too many white blood cells. He was basically telling my mom that I had leukemia without really saying it. He said that they were going to wait for my fever to go down before sending me home so they can set up some treatments. But my mom took it as “When the fever goes down, she can go home and get medicine.” So the fever eventually went down a couple hours later so I went home. I was still sick all of the time but it gradually started to go away. So thank God for that.

Years Later

Now I am 16 and I always have that in the back of my mind. My mom likes to bring it up as one of her biggest regrets because she didn’t really understand that I was in a life or death situation. However, I thank God every day for letting it pass. But, IF YOU HAVE CANCER, OR YOU THINK YOU HAVE CANCER PLEASE SEEK A DOCTOR.