Cancer

Author's Note: This piece is a personal narrative about how my grandpa ends up getting diagnosed with cancer. Notice my more advanced word choice and voice.

Cancer is a hard thing to grasp. One moment you’re as healthy as can be and the next, you are in the intensive care taking 15 different medicines. The hard thing is, you can’t control it. It just comes and catches you off guard. Well one thing's for sure, this event that happened with my grandpa caught my attention and had the whole family puzzled.

This horrifying, uncontrollable disease hit my grandpa, Roger, faster than he could blink. He was just walking to the mailbox one day and all of a sudden he fell to the ground, experiencing an excruciating pain in his leg. Being the stubborn man that he was, he tried to delay letting my grandma know what had happened.

The pain ended up getting so bad, he had to go to the doctor. He was hoping they would say that it was only temporary pain, that it was harmless. Except when the nurse came out with the test results, she said ,"Sir, I'm sorry. I'm afraid you've been diagnosed with acute leukemia. It's one of the fastest spreading cancers we know. I'm not sure how much longer you have to live." Shock came over him like a massive tidal wave in the Atlantic Ocean. He couldn't believe his ears.

My family was notified a day later. We all were blown away. Catching my breath I exclaimed, "How could this happen, Mom?! He's the healthiest 80 year old I know!" "I'm not sure, sweetie", my mom said back to me sniffling. Before I knew it, we were off to the hospital to visit Grandpa Roger.

When I walked into his hospital room, I gasped. “That can’t be grandpa,” I said to my sister, Bethany. My grandpa sat on the bed with huge purple welts all over his body. He could barely open his drowsy eyes that would soon be falling into a deep sleep. My aunts and uncles surrounded him, each taking turns saying that we loved him. When it was my turn, I went up to his hospital bed and said, “I love you so much, grandpa.” Since he was on so many meds, I knew that he wouldn’t be able to say anything back.  Except faintly, I could hear him say, “ I love you too, Christina”. That made me start bawling because I knew I wasn’t ever going to see him alive again. It was time to say goodbye.

In the end, cancer took my grandpa’s life. It hurt me so much losing a loved one. Although, I learned an important life lesson: we can’t always take things for granted. Sometimes you have to stop everything you’re doing and realize what you already have in front of you.