Cancer. Of all things. The one I can’t accept. My mother basically informing my sister and I that my brother might die. At this point my mom was petrified. You could see it in her eyes and her body language. Fierce with every body movement and word she uses. It was as if her life was ending. It was the worst thing of all, knowing that my brother had cancer. There was nothing that I could do about that. All I could do was have hope in him, my family and myself. I don’t remember much. During this time there were four healthy people in my family and one who was diagnosed with cancer.

All I remember is being in Denver a lot, and talking about it at school. Playing the games I love to play without him, and having two less people at the dinner table since one of my parents had to stay with him. But, most of the time, my sister Anna and I stayed at my grandparents house.

“He will be okay.” my grandparents would always tell me.

I had to think that, or else I would be miserable. I was miserable either way. My heart would never stop pounding. In my sleep, at school, while I danced. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. That’s all I could feel and hear. Desperation.

He was in Denver almost all the time. I missed him. I missed him alot. So much that it felt like I was sick of myself. It was in my stomach. I felt like there was a huge monster inside of me. Gnawing on me from the inside out. And I was worried about him. While he was in Denver he missed a lot of school. But, the good thing is that he got tutored by my Mom, so he got some learning in. In the meantime, when he wasn’t learning, tired, or getting a treatment, he was playing “Battle Ship” or any other game my mom brought to suck the boredom out of him. Every morning, he would eat something different. When I was there, I remember him consuming a bagel. The bagel was an everything bagel with strawberry cream cheese, which is his favorite kind of bagel.

Everyone came to support him. They brought him presents and money to make him feel better. At this point, my brother really liked sock monkeys. My aunt was so sweet to order him a giant, light brown huggable sock monkey! It was life-sized! Black glimmering eyes and warm hugs.

While my brother was in the hospital he had chemo therapy. This was one of the treatments for his disease. He was also doing bone marrow biopsies once a week. A bone marrow biopsy is a procedure that takes a small sample of the marrow inside your bones for a testing in a laboratory. This test is used to see if you have an infection, disease, or any other sickness/problem that is in your bone marrow.

When my sister and I went to visit my brother, we talked to Cody, the psychologist. Cody looked like a scientist from a brainy movie. She explained to us in terms that made sense for children. Cody informed us that my brother was sick. My brother’s white blood cells, which help a body fight infections were confused and not working like normal. The treatment that they gave him was supposed to fix his DNA and make him better. As Cody told me this I was still very confused because my knowledge and vocabulary as a young child was not very intelligent.
My brother was getting a lot of different treatments to cure his disease. After 32 weeks of anticipating and hoping that my brother would survive it finally happened.The horrible beast taking my brother away from my family came to a halt. Knowing that he was cancer free made it feel like I was flying because all of my worries were lifted up off of me. My eyes welted up because of all of the tears climbing out of my eyes. I couldn’t see a thing it was so blurry.

My brother is very lucky that he was able to withstand this disease. When we found out that he was cancer free even more people came to visit him. It was wonderful! From this experience, I have learned that DNA is especially important when regarded as unchangeable. His DNA translocated because he got sick. Then when he started taking the medicine, his DNA translocated back to good.

He still had a long road of healing so he had to stay in the hospital, but it was good to know that he survived. Having him survive made my family whole again. My brother used to go to Denver every two months for a checkup to make sure the cancer did not come back. But now my brother doesn’t have to go back at all because we know that he is healthy and is going to stay healthy.

During this tragedy, I have learned to always have hope in your family and yourself. Never let them down. Never give up.