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Pediatric cancers ATI
Essays on childhood cancer
Essays on childhood cancer
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Childhood is the time that children are suppose to be carefree and enjoy themselves before embarking on the path of responsibility and adulthood. This wasn't the case for me. It all began one day in early August when my sister and I sat with my parents in the hospital room, talking to my Dad about things we wanted to do when he was discharged. A doctor walked in with an unsettling air surrounding him. We all sat looking at him but before we could ask who he was, he said, “So let's discuss your cancer treatment options.” Cancer. That day was the first that word had even entered the picture. Everyone's face paled, but I didn't even get a moment to process the information before I was being forced out of the room, dragging my sister behind me to the waiting area. While we sat in there, she cried and sobbed about the fatal disease that would wreak havoc through our lives, but I pushed it all away. I focused on her. I was oblivious to the cloud of death forming in the horizon. …show more content…
Chemotherapy became frequent and doctor appointments were never ending. I spent the time home alone with my sister, practically taking on the full job of raising a child; I had to make sure she ate, brushed her teeth, did her homework. Then one day, I got called out of school to be told that my Dad had passed away earlier that morning. My world went into a spiral. I pulled away from the world around me and sunk back into a shroud of darkness and pain that I denied for years and refused to deal with. I buried myself in school and homework so that I could always have an excuse for not going out. I had the added circumstance of moving to a new school each year of high school, making it easier to not get attached to people and float through the
From a historical perspective, however, this is a recent turn of events. Advances in medicine, hygiene, and technology have rendered childhood death an anomaly rather than the commonplace event it was as recently as the mid-20th century (Singh, 2010). These facts are of little help in relieving the grief of these parents, but interventions based on a life course perspective may prove helpful. Unlike other, more linear theories, the life course perspective places less emphasis on a straightforward progression of milestone events; rather, emphasis is on the content and timing of events during the lifetime of the family (Bengston & Allen, 2009). While life course perspective does place some significance on the role that chronological time plays within the life cycle, it does not insist on uniformity in stages of development. This allows for individuals to construct their own meaning of the events in their lives. Nor does it exclude the usefulness of other social science disciplines; the life course perspective incorporates and acknowledges the importance of a variety of fields: psychology, sociology, economics, and history, to name a few. (Bengston & Allen, 2009). Perhaps this less-rigid viewpoint will help these grieving parents to feel that they have not done anything
The lost of a child; who knew the pain? Who knew it would be a pain that could not be explained? Who knew you would have to force yourself not to cry all day and everyday? Who knew no words could take away this hurt? Who knew I would have to deal with this pain? Who knew I would be the one going through this pain? No words could ever explain the lost of a child?
Emptiness, confusion, uncertainty, suspense, but above all, fear. These emotions hit me like lightning, and they were definitely too much to handle for an 11 year old. Cancer, my mother said, her tone was almost mellow. I knew that she was sick, but cancer? Breast cancer, in fact, it took me a very long time to process such a short sentence. Immediately I knew it was the last day I could cry. My mother did not need a baby crying; she already had my sisters to care for, not to mention herself. That same afternoon, right after I hugged my mother and lied to myself that everything was going to be just fine, I knew I was a different person. But it was 5 years later when I realize that I had changed, when my mom came home from the doctor and for the second time I had hear she had cancer.
Cancer is a deadly disease that millions of people die from a year. Many loved ones are killed with little to no warning affecting families across our world. My family happened to be one that was affected by this atrocious disease. This event changed the way my family members and I viewed cancer.
When I was younger, I remember feeling as though I lived in a bubble; my life was perfect. I had an extremely caring and compassionate mother, two older siblings to look out for me, a loving grandmother who would bake never ending sweets and more toys than any child could ever realistically play with. But as I grew up my world started to change. My sister developed asthma, my mother became sick with cancer and at the age of five, my disabled brother developed ear tumors and became deaf. As more and more problems were piled upon my single mother’s plate, I, the sweet, quiet, perfectly healthy child, was placed on the back burner. It was not as though my family did not love me; it was just that I was simply, not a priority.
Although some individuals may believe that it was a miracle that my father survived cancer, it was much more than that. The optimism of my family, friends, and loved ones enabled my dad to relieve his stress and focus on his cancer treatment. This situation has changed my mindset in life and it has provoked me to stay hopeful even when the odds are not in my favor. I’ve began to use positive thinking to help guide myself to my ambitions. This made my transition into adulthood much easier because I was prepared to deal with difficult situations. I began to cherish my loved ones even more than before. I realized all the luxuries that I had received and took for granted. I learned that the most important people in life is your family and without them, it’s near impossible to be successful. If my father had lost his fight, I would have had to become more independent as I would become the man of the house. Going into adulthood, I’ve learned that I should take situations into my owns hands rathering that relying on others. Some people that may be there for you today, may not be there
"Ring, ring", I wondered who was calling me at this time of evening. "Yes; o.k.; Yes, I'll be there", I said before hanging up the phone. What was wrong, I wondered all that evening that the doctor wanted me to come in to discuss my lab results? I had never been asked to come in to the office after doing blood tests before; when receiving a call as this the mind plays tricks on the person and wild things start popping up in the head.
In consideration of that event, it had always motivated me to become an ER physician, such that no one can go through what my brother had been. As well as watching the TV show “Untold Stories of the ER” and being a member of the program BEWISE (better education for women in science and engineering) it had also influenced my decisions. Another hardship I had face while growing up was when my father cheated on my mother. During that time I was still young, so for me personally it was a difficult time. The very first person who found out about my dad’s affair was me but at that time I blamed myself for that situation, I thought if I never found out about it then everything would go back to normal. However, everything around me seemed to change gradually within time; that’s when I started to have depression, I felt as though I couldn’t tell anyone. At school, I would always have to put up a facade of being happy due to feeling selfish because I knew my friends had it much harder than I do. As a result, I felt isolated from the world. Within time I felt numb to the situation, until one night my mother couldn’t handle it so that's when my mother confronted my father, everything around me
Two months into the year I was in a severe car accident in which I suffered from a serious concussion as well as a sprained neck. The scariest part about the incident was not actually the crash, it was the aftermath. I was completely alone when I was in the accident and I remember immediately not being able to hear out of my left ear, the side that hit the interior wall of the car during the impact. The collision was head on so my car had engine failure making it impossible to move. My airbags deployed and a thick powder mixed with smoke was released into the air. I couldn’t get out of my car, so I was trapped in the car while having an asthma attack because of the lack of oxygen. Never in my life have I been so scared and had no idea what to do in the situation.With this being my third concussion, I recovered very slowly. I missed over a month of school and during this period of time I was also missing the college process. At the time my mother was across the country on the west coast taking care of my beloved grandmother who was terminally ill from a longtime battle with cancer. With her being gone and my only brother being away at college, there wasn’t the comfort of having my family around during this hard period. That year my grandmother passed away and I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I missed a huge part of my senior year and there was a possibility of not being able to
Seventeen years ago, I came bounding into a world of love and laughter. I was the first child, the first grandchild, the first niece, and the primary focus of my entire extended family. Although they were not married, my parents were young and energetic and had every good intention for their new baby girl. I grew up with opportunities for intellectual and spiritual growth, secure in the knowledge that I was loved, free from fear, and confident that my world was close to perfect. And I was the center of a world that had meaning only in terms of its effect on me-- what I could see from a height of three feet and what I could comprehend with the intellect and emotions of a child. This state of innocence persisted through my early teens, but changed dramatically in the spring of my sophomore year of high school. My beloved father was dying of AIDS.
Imagine having to wake up each day wondering if that day will be the last time you see or speak to your father. Individuals should really find a way to recognize that nothing in life is guaranteed and that they should live every day like it could be there last. This is the story of my father’s battle with cancer and the toll it took on himself and everyone close to him. My father was very young when he was first diagnosed with cancer. Lately, his current health situation is much different than what it was just a few months ago. Nobody was ready for what was about to happen to my dad, and I was not ready to take on so many new responsibilities at such an adolescent age. I quickly learned to look at life much differently than I had. Your roles change when you have a parent who is sick. You suddenly become the caregiver to them, not the other way around.
When one hears the word “cancer”, thoughts about how their previous life is about to change cloud the mind, but when one hears the word cancer for their child, it is a whole different outlook; the affects of childhood cancer are not only taken on by the patients, but also by their families; the affects can range from emotionally to physically, socially to financially, and even educationally. “Childhood cancer is considered rare, especially compared with adults. Still it’s the leading cause of death in children pre-adolescent, school-aged children” (Report: Childhood Cancer Rates Continue to Rise, but Treatment Helps Drive Down Deaths). Around 12,000 children in the United States are diagnosed with cancer every year and around one in five children that are diagnosed with cancer will die.
She began to suffer from hair and weight loss as well as the color change of her skin. My mind began to intersect with thoughts of her dying from cancer. I decided negativity would no longer control my thoughts; I had a grandmother who needed me to be strong and think positive about her condition, regardless of the situation and her physical changes. During the time of my grandmother chemotherapy treatments, I would miss school to attend her appointments. As a sophomore in high school, I could only miss a small amount of days before any negative effects displayed toward my grades. Therefore, I would miss school every Tuesday and Thursday for the next four months of my first semester of tenth grade. I didn’t mind because my grandmother meant the world to me and I would have done it a thousand times, if I was given the
After several years, the pain comes and goes. At home I have become so used to the few pictures and momentos of my mom that I hardly see them unless I purposely decide to look at them. In my voluteer work after school, I find that once again I can concentrate on things. Only once and a while, something will trigger a memory. Occasionally, I go for periods of time feeling sad, but my work with children and my friends and family keep me focused. I feel confident in my abilities and feel much stronger than ever before. It has been a monumental amount of work to get to this point.
I would do my best to avoid being home. I did not want to deal with the fighting and the atmosphere at home, it was not healthy. I would stay at work as late as possible usually until midnight. I would leave for school at 7 in the morning, even though I would not have to be there until 8:15. I was not sleeping, my grades had dropped, I was doing poorly at work and barely eating. At least two days a week I would skip school and go to my mom’s grandma’s house to sleep. When my mom found she took me to the doctor, I was prescribed antidepressants.