I know I’ll never forget that room. After all, how could I?
Months were spent stuck between those four walls, desperately wanting to escape but knowing- deep-down- that it was better for me to stay.
I had many firsts in that room; my first blood transfusion; my first allergic reaction; my first time seeing my father cry, and my first time hearing the words “Hodgkin’s Lymphoma”.
To say that the diagnosis blindsided me and turned my world upside down would be an understatement.
Here's the thing, when it’s you who has something, you never think it will actually turn out to be something.
Surely the “shadow” on my MRI would be simply that, a shadow. Or an error in the imaging. The protruding lump on my neck was bound to be benign, right?
At 17, I felt invincible. That is, until I abruptly learned that I wasn’t.
Until I learned how it felt to watch my hair fall down the drain.
How it felt to swap Homecoming dances, senior nights, and football games with surgeries, scans, and rounds of chemotherapy.
How it felt to beg to be admitted to the hospital because my pain was so intense.
There were days that I was so sick that I remember wondering if I would ever feel better.
Yet, through all the helplessness, frustration, and fear, my battle with cancer taught me more about life and myself than I ever could have hoped to know at 17.
Truly, the little everyday mundanities are what matter the most.
Whenever I dread going to work or school, I think about the fact that last year I would have killed to be healthy enough to do either of those things.
Little moments mean more now since I know how fragile life is.
What is, undoubtedly a large accomplishment to all, like graduating, becomes an even bigger one when seemingly insurmountable challenges must first be overcome to achieve it.
By being brought to the edge of life and death, I realized how important life’s small moments are.
Although the possibility of one day having cancer again terrifies me, I cannot let that anxiety distract me.
Thus, acknowledging my present health and the future's uncertainty, I am motivated- daily- to make the most of life and all it has to offer, even the little things, because I know that these things are in fact not little at all.
