During my ninth grade year, my grandma was set to have her meningioma brain tumor removed on February 2nd, 2015. She was, of course, nervous about the surgery. Someone was going to literally cut open her head and essentially suck out the tumor. It was a normal school day for me. I woke up, got ready for school, and almost rushed out of the house, but she stopped me to say goodbye while making a seemingly innocent joke about not returning the same after her surgery. At the time I was ignorant of the possibilities and hit by a truck when I was pulled out of school early. There were complications and she had a minor stroke. I was petrified by the idea of losing her, the woman that I looked up to, and who practically raised me but the outcome was
Waking up to the sound of the clapping of her hands making homemade tortillas was part of my daily life growing up in the ranch. Still with my eyes closed, I could smell a combination of the corn tortillas cooking slowly, and smoke of burning wood coming from the brick porch right outside my room. With my mouth watering for the taste of such appetizing meal, made by this woman whom I adore, was the beginning of my days as a child. "Everything has a solution, except death", words so powerful and meaningful she always implied to me. I have learned from experience that the attitude and way in which we see things before doing them, has a powerful impact on its outcome. For example, if I don’t want to cook dinner,
During the winter of my sophomore year of high school my aunt, whom I am very close with, was diagnosed with stage three ovarian and cervical cancer. She underwent various surgeries and chemotherapy treatments, spent weeks in the hospital, and many more weeks battling the effects of the chemotherapy from home.
When I think about the moments leading up to my diagnosis I remember feeling weak, confused, shaky and sleepy. I did not notice that I had began sleeping throughout the day. My body was craving soft drinks like soda and juice but not food. Days would go by and I eventually fell into a deep slumber that I found myself only waking up from to use the bathroom. I knew something was wrong and that if I did not get to a hospital it would get worse. Nothing could have prepared me for the life changing diagnosis I would receive.
Finding out about my grandmothers death was the saddest moment in my life . I didn't understand . I didn't expect it to happen , not to me . I wondered why god had taken an important person away from my life , ad for that i felt confused and miserable . I cried for hours that day . Nothing could have brought me joy that day but the presence of my grandmother , but she was gone and i found it hard to overcome the situation.
Around the age of 5, going to doctor appointments was a normal occurrence . I would even look forward to it, spending time with my mom. I will always cherish those times that I spent with her. Those appointments eventually lead up to the surgery that would change everything. During that surgery, the doctor had created a hole in the mesentery lining, tissue that connects organs to the wall of the abdomen. This hole eventually became larger causing many organs to fail. We brought my mom into the ER where she was brought into surgery. This would be the first time my mom would die.
Living our busy lives no one else in the family could travel to Houston. Grandma was a strong woman. She could overcome anything and cancer was not going to defeat her. When she arrived at the hospital the doctors took a cat scan and figured out that she had stage four melanoma skin cancer. While my mother and grandma were at M.D. Anderson I was at home living a normal life just starting my first high school basketball season. Every night I worried about how she was doing not thinking about my school work or my athletics. A couple weeks later I called grandma and asked her how she was doing and she assured me that everything was going to be okay and that I should not worry about her. That’s how she lived. She never put herself first in any situation and family and friends were her main focus. Grandma would do anything to make her grandkids happy. I told my grandma I loved her and hung up the phone. The next day at school I looked up the percentage of people killed by melanoma skin cancer and the results were not good. One person dies of melanoma every 54 minutes. When I got home that evening I told my dad that I needed to be in Houston with my grandma. He said he didn’t think that he could make it happen with his busy schedule. I called my mom upset realizing that
When my grandmother was told that she had breast cancer first time, she decided to cure it with non-Western healing method. She went to a sort of temple that heal and improve one's body condition from detoxing and changing one's diet. At the temple, she had taken enzyme sand bath twice a day, had fasted for a week or more, and had eaten healthy addictive free food. The people at the temple said that cancer or any kind of sickness would come from what we consume in daily life. Therefore, they tried to cure health problems from changing one's diet and consequently improve one's potential body condition. Actually, from this treatment, my grandmother's cancer went away. However, after a couple years from that, she started eating unhealthy again,
It was a Monday night; I remember it like it was yesterday. I had just completed my review of Office Administration in preparation for my final exams. As part of my leisure time, I decided to watch my favorite reality television show, “I love New York,” when the telephone rang. I immediately felt my stomach dropped. The feeling was similar to watching a horror movie reaching its climax. The intensity was swirling in my stomach as if it were the home for the butterflies. My hands began to sweat and I got very nervous. I could not figure out for the life of me why these feelings came around. I lay there on the couch, confused and still, while the rings continued. My dearest mother decided to answer this eerie phone call. As she picked up, I sat straight up. I muted the television in hopes of hearing what the conversation. At approximately three minutes later, the telephone fell from my mother’s hands with her faced drowned in the waves of water coming from her eyes. She cried “Why?” My Grandmother had just died.
It was July 22nd when I got the phone call that my great grandma was in the hospital. It was so shocking to me I didn’t even know what to think I had just been up there to see her two days ago prior to then. My dad had called me and told me in a calm but of course I know my dad to well to know that he was calm but actually pretty scared and frantic. I was at work and a perk to my job is that I work at a family owned business that is actually close to my family.
Our family was never close but we didn’t care. Nobody thought one day things might be different. All of that changed on September 20, 2014 when a hostile argument ended with the death of both my aunt and uncle. For years their marriage was falling apart. My aunt was very materialistic and wanted my cousins to have whatever they asked for but in reality my uncle knew it was impossible financially for them to achieve this. He would try to explain this to her but it usually led to arguments where she would then threaten to leave him so in the end she got her way which led to their vast debt. My uncle had a drinking problem but went to AA classes for her to commiserate their marriage and family. The night before this event he had drank a beer which led into a dispute which ended with my aunt taking the kids to her mom’s and they stayed their while my uncle just stayed home. Less than twelve hours later the mailman walked up to a house with my aunt dead on the front porch and my uncle inside on the living room floor dead. The screams caught the attention of the neighbors and the police was then called. This is a significant experience in my life that I faced and that had an impact on me during my freshman year and still affects me today. It was a homicide/suicide accident and it deeply impacted my family and me. Not only did it affect my school life but my home life as well.
Everyone has gone through a period of their lifetime where they have either been through some of the best times of their lifes, filled with happiness and joy; or they have been through some of the worst times of their lifes, filled with anxiety and sorrow. The worst time in my life was when my brother had a brain aneurysm; I never had seen my family filled with so much fear before.
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
In life many of us experience what it is like to be hurt by those we hold dear. As a young girl I saw this first hand that generally the people we hold the closest actually end up being the people that hurt us the most. You expect more from them and their actions affect you on a deeper level the people you hold to a different standard from your loved ones. My grandmother taught me through the hardships she experienced what it mean to be a genuinely selfless person. My grandmother showed me the best way to live is by ensuring the happiness of loved ones even when they have wronged you
It was June 6, 2011. I remember taking my mother to the County Hospital’s emergency room. She seemed extremely exhausted; her eyes were half-closed and yellow, and she placed her elbow on the armchair, resting her head on her palm. I remember it was crowded and the wait was long, so she wanted to leave. I was the only one there with her, but I did not allow her to convince me to take her home. I told her in Spanish, “Mom, let’s wait so that we can get this over with and know what’s going on with you. You’ll see everything is okay, and we’ll go home later on.” I wish then and now that would have been the case. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with colon cancer that had spread to many parts of her body including her lungs and kidneys. The doctor said to me not considering that I was a minor and my mother’s daughter, “Her disease is very advanced and we don’t think she will live longer than a year.” With this devastating news, I did not know what to do. I thought to myself that perhaps I should cry, or try to forget and take care of her as best I could and make her laugh to ease her pain.
February twenty-third 2010 was just a regular ordinary day. I was on my way to class on this cold February afternoon, when my phone rung. It was my cousin on the other end telling me to call my mom. I could not figure out what was wrong, so I quickly said okay and I hung up and called my mom. When my mom answered the phone I told her the message but I said I do not know what is wrong. My mom was at work and could not call right away, so I took the effort to call my cousin back to see what was going on. She told me that our uncle was in the hospital and that it did not look good. Starting to tear up I pull over in a fast food restaurant parking lot to listen to more to what my cousin had to say. She then tells me to tell my mom to get to the hospital as quickly as possible as if it may be the last time to see her older brother. My mom finally calls me back and when I tell her the news, she quickly leaves work. That after-noon I lost my Uncle.