Hey guys! It's been way too long, I got crazy busy with work and school and stuff. I've been looking for scholarships like crazy, and I found one for cancer kids/people affected by cancer in my state! Here's my essay; would you give me money? ;P Tell me what you think!!
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Mostly Normal
There is no real way to start this that isn’t a cliche. I could say, “you never think it’ll be you,” I could say, “on that day my life was forever changed,” but that’s not my story. Those stories have their place, but that isn’t mine.
It is true that now one plans for cancer. Two days after my fifteenth birthday, leukemia was the last thing they wanted to test my blood work for. After it was determined that it was either acute lymphocytic leukemia or chronic myelogenous leukemia, I was sent to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. (Needless to say, my birthday party? Totally canceled.)After spending a week in the hospital, we found out that it was, in fact, CML in the chronic phase, and I knew more about how my body works (and doesn’t work) than the average freshman. I remember Christmas that followed it very clearly- two days after coming home, feeling mostly normal, my family all around- but there was something different. I was sick.
Being sick, to me, means something different than most kids with cancer. I have to take pills for the rest of my life, and the side effects are pretty nasty. I get migraines, fatigue, bone and joint pain, and other things that make my day to day life rather difficult at times. I never have had to undergo chemo radiation, because the pills work as a chemo agent. But if I ever were to get a bone marrow transplant, the only cure for my illness, I would have to kill all of my bone marrow with radiation first, which is when my body is most prone to an infection. Which could cause me my life. Then, doctors would give me the marrow through an IV and I basically would cross my fingers. The transplant, like any transplant, could go wrong, or my body could reject it. This is a scary option, but luckily with my pills, it isn’t my only option.
Three years after my diagnosis, now going into my adult years, the days before it seem fuzzy and unreal. Even the family vacation the summer before doesn’t feel like it even happened- looking at pictures and thinking “before we knew” gives me a weird feeling. This illness has been part of my life for so long, it’s just kind of worked itself into my day to day life. When I explain CML to people, a lot of them ask me how I do it- go to school, go to work, be a normal member of society - and I always respond the same way. What do they expect me to do? Sit in my room and cry? No. I refuse to.
I want to further my education because of this reason. Through all of this, one of my goals has been not letting my illness define me. However, I would be lying if I said I’ve never felt the overwhelming weight the definition “chronic” can have. Sometimes even the thought of my fast approaching future suffocates and terrifies me- but I will not allow that to stop me from carrying out my life plans.
I plan on being an English teacher, for many reasons. One of them being that writing has always been an outlet for me, especially when it comes to expressing myself about my illness, but also just trying to communicate my ideas with people. I love that words can have different meanings to different people, and I feel like those meanings should be shared- which is another reason I want to teach. I also plan on being the teacher and role model that all of my teachers have been for me; I have never had a bad relationship with any of my teachers, and they have always inspired and supported me. I would love to be that to my students.
No one ever plans for cancer, or any other sort of curve ball that life or fate throws at us. But like so many others, my story will not stop at my diagnosis. My mostly normal life will go far beyond that day in December.
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