The Story of Cancer

I think we all go through life for the most part being happy. We do our day to day activities and worry about little things that ultimately don't matter. It's not until sickness or disease or death plagues our day that we truly realize what is important. Until three weeks ago my biggest issues were stressing about college and perfecting how to wand my hair-I'm pretty much an expert now. Then, just as something like this does, cancer hit me like a ton of bricks, to the face, with absolutely no warning.

It began with learning of the progression of my friend Anne's cancer. She had been diagnosed with cancer a couple years before and was living with treatments and chemo and to my knowledge, dealing with it in as graceful and amazing a way as possible-which was Anne's style. We went to a friend's birthday over the summer and though she had gotten chemo the day before she seemed alright. Alright, what kind of word is that? It's terrible. No one wants to feel alright. No one wants to look alright. Everything about that word screams negativity and I should have seen it then. She was weak and barely ate at dinner and I just simply thought she was recovering from chemo. We went to a dance bar afterward and we left after a very short period because she was exhausted. I thought to myself, eh, I'm not really feeling this scene anyway, I'm on the same page, let's leave. I was not on the same page at all. In fact, I was reading a very different book. In my book, Anne had graduated from UC and while she was too sick to work, that was chemo's fault and eventually she would start her career and marry her boyfriend and live the life I'd written up in my fairytale. In Anne's book she was progressively getting worse, she found out she had twenty-something tumors in her brain and it wasn't until she was in hospice that I closed my book and started reading hers. I went to visit and went down memory lane and wanted to be a good friend to her at the end. She spent a short time in hospice and she passed last Wednesday. It's strange knowing that we won't laugh together anymore, and she won't tell me weird stories anymore and that that friendship is gone, because someone my age had cancer.

The next unfortunate event happened this past week as well. My grandma who is my everything, my co-parent, my second mom, and is only 64 I might add has cancerous tumors on her lungs. These chordoma tumors can't be removed or radiated or taken care of. The doctors are giving my grandma a pill, which may shrink them and prolong them from getting worse. They also informed her that if they don't work, she will cough up blood and wouldn't tell her what would happen next-though I think she knows. So we spent this past Monday at the casino; eating, gambling and laughing and all I could think that whole time is that I hope I have plenty more time to do this with her. I hope with her, we are reading the same book and that she plans to grow old and see my children and always be there for me. It may sound selfish, but there is always that one person who is always there, always in your corner and always the person you want to have, and for me that's her.