Anyoneteachone

Grace Within Courage

Posted on October 12, 2015

The following essay was not written by me. it was written by my 16 year old granddaughter whose strength and depth of character is way beyond her years. It has an important message in it that inspires those who have had to deal with overwhelming trauma and survived. Hope you enjoy.

“Raven I regret to tell you this, but you have Leukemia” These words shattered my world and turned it upside down. All I remember is my mom jumping in front of the doctor looking me in the eyes and telling me “Raven Listen to me You can beat this all you have to do is keep a good attitude!” my doctor tried to interrupt her but she put her hand up and said firmly that she needed to talk to her daughter. He smiled and walk out. My mom then looked back at me and kept telling me that as long as I didn’t give up I would make it through. She said its 10% meds 90% attitude, and that sunk in because I still remember it like it was yesterday. And that’s how I found out I had Cancer

Next thing I know I’m getting sent down to Memphis, Tennessee to go to a special hospital for kids in my position. My position? All I know is that I had to pack up with a duffle bag of clothes leave the only place I’ve ever known and be shipped off without no more than 5 hours’ notice because the ambulance was already on its way. Why me? I know I’ve had bad luck but this is ridiculous. I look out the windows in the ambulance and I see oak trees and wheat fields that are just starting to wither away. Is that going to be me soon? Withering away as the months or weeks go by? I guess we’ll find out in about 4 hours huh?

39787 that’s my new name I guess. That’s what everyone calls me. “Is that 39787?” “Is 39787 hungry?” “39787 is not in her room. Where is she?” This… this 5 digit number is my new identity. In fact, I got so sick and tired of it that, I snuck out of my room just so I could get away from it all. But then everything erupted in chaos. All I was doing was sneaking down to the kitchen to read in peace and quiet. It was bad enough I had to drag around this pole of fluids that was about twice my size. But now i can’t even leave my room without getting lectured about fall risks and white blood cells. I was just trying to get out of this medically induced prison. You’d think they would have some consideration but I guess when you see it every day you get immune to it. I just hope it gets easier because I don’t know if I can do this for….HEY HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO DO THIS FOR?!?!?!?

“No! I will not stay here for 4 months I got plans!!! I got school!! I can’t just up and leave my friends! My FAMILY!! No I won’t do it!!!” They can’t expect me to do this. They can’t make me! Can they?? “We don’t have a choice sweetheart” mom said with sorrow in her eyes. It was then that I realized they were not only taking me from my life but taking her from hers as well.

Then… came the side effects. After getting a Rubber ball attached to my heart, came the meds and the consequences. That had to be the worst part. The Chemo they give you messes with your energy and cells, so to counteract them they gave me steroids.

Yes. I did say steroids. And those steroids came with a nasty price. A price I wasn’t aware I had to pay.

If you have never heard of avascular necrosis, you would not be the only one. Avascular Necrosis is a deterioration of the bones and/or Joints. If you catch it in time they can be saved. for example if you catch it at 30% then you can get a surgery where they place a metal rod in your bone/joint and crush it up to get blood flow through there. I have had this on my knees and ankles, even though they were at 90% my hips and shoulders were too far gone to save, so for those they had to replace them. God It makes me feel like I’m 80 with a hip and shoulder replacement.

Anyways now I have had 6 surgeries in/on my nose, port (rubber ball), shoulder, hip, knees, and ankles. That doesn’t even count the spinal taps. Which for those of you who don’t know are when they stick a needle in the base of your spine and take out fluids or put in chemo. And when it comes to spinal taps I’ve had over….100. But those don’t bother me except for the fact that when you get knocked out for a spinal tap you can’t eat for 7 hours before.

Now there are time that I look back and laugh, which I know does not seem right. And I’m sure you are asking yourself “how can you laugh at something like that?” and I have a way to show you. So I’m going to end this personal narrative on a positive note with a funny story.

I was about halfway through treatment when I had to do a spinal tap on a very busy day for the hospital. So just like any other hospital I had to wait in the waiting room. (Now let me remind you that it was about 2 o’clock in the afternoon and I had not eaten since midnight the night before so I was hungry) I got up to go ask the nurse how much longer we had to wait and she was eating a bag of spicy Cheetos and I wouldn’t have minded if she wasn’t so mean about it. “Excuse me miss?” she looked up with a glare in her eye and said “what?” I didn’t know what to think but I got a little irritated but not enough to say something so I just smiled and asked “would you happen to know how much longer till they can get me back in the operating room?” (now before I go any further it won’t make sense if I don’t tell you they had huge aquariums in the waiting room with little clown fish in them) so she said “ Do I look like I would know?!?” by this time I was ticked off so again I smiled and said “well you look like you would at least know where I can get some tartar sauce” she was confused and said in a tone I rather did not like “ why would you need tartar sauce? I know for a fact you aren’t allowed to eat” I couldn’t help myself I smiled evilly and said “cause I’m about to go eat Nemo. And if you’d rather I didn’t I suggest you Talk to the doctor and see how long till they can get me back!” She looked horrified to say the least. But hey it worked I got called back 2 mins later.

And that’s my story. I would to add that I am 4 months away from being done with chemotherapy. um let me think I believe I covered everything. Oh… If you have a question about any of this just feel free to ask me. I’d rather you know than guess. So I guess the moral of my story is you can find humor in almost anything if you look hard enough…