I realize now that the week before it happened, the week before my life changed forever, that I was dying. It doesn't seem real. It was homecoming my freshmen year and I was so excited; I had the perfect dress, my friends and I had a limo, it was all set.
But things didn't quite work out the way I had hoped. I started to become tired; I couldn't keep up at track practice and I fell behind at school because every day I would come home from school and go straight to bed. I started to run fevers and I noticed a rash all over my body. My mom began to worry and made a doctor's appointment for me.
Each day for homecoming week had a theme and Thursday, believe it or not was "InsIde Out Day" a day in which not only were my clothes turned inside out for the day, but my life was completely changed forever. When I woke up that morning I had a bloody nose and it wouldn't stop. I remember sitting on my bathroom floor crying, wanting to know what was the matter with me. In my first period class, my nose started bleeding again...If only I knew what was wrong. Then sitting in my history class, there was a knock at the door and an office worker asked for me. I got up to leave, she said to bring all of my stuff. Walking through the hallway, deep in my heart I knew something was wrong, really wrong. As I walked into the office the first thing I saw was my dad with tears in his eyes telling me "Sweetie, you get to have the day off." I started to cry asking them what was the matter, but the only response was blank stares. The bell rang as I was crying at my locker. Kids came out, giving me quizzical looks wanting to know what was wrong.
At the hospital I was taken back to the emergency room where blood tests were taken. I remember the doctor who was taking care of me. She was trying to take my mind off all the thoughts I had going through my head. I hated her though. She was the first one to tell me I might have a disease and I couldn't handle that.
The test results did come back with a diagnosis of leukemia. My parents started to cry, telling me they were sorry and that there was still that .01% chance. I was stunned, I didn't think it was real, it was just a bad dream I was living.
Sitting Indian style on a hospital bed, the nurses brought me up on the patient floor crying. I took everything in around me; all the children hooked up to monitors, the bald heads and the smell, so stingy and stale. They brought me into a cramped room with a little girl and her mother. I didn't belong with them, I was better. I sat on my bed blocking everything out, thinking it would all just disappear. One after another I received tests; all came back positive. My doctor sat on my bed and told me I had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and had to start immediately on chemotherapy and radiation.
I walked back to the treatment room for my first chemo that I received through a spinal tap. As the nurses brought me back to my room we passed all the children sitting on their beds, but one little girl turned to me and gave me a huge smile that lit up her entire face. You didn't see her baldness and her puffed up face from all the medication or the fact that she had a "disease," but you saw a little girl who was excited to live, a girl who didn't dwell on being sick and made each moment of her life count. Maybe everyone would live their lives differently if they realized, every week is the week before.