My Hardest fight|BONE-MARROW TRANSPLANT

Night Before

Halloween night 2015 was a weird night… while seeing the whole

city celebrate,I remember thinking if it was really going to happen the next day. As the fear grew stronger,I felt a feeling of reassurance knowing that I will make it through.

To quickly get my mind off thing she offered us to have our last date for a while.. going into a transplant i was told that i wasnt able to eat anything for three months.

                                                           PREP DAYS

11/1/15

The day was Sunday.. I didn’t even have to look at the calen

dar to remember that. A very, very gloomy and grey Sunday. The weather fit my mood perfectly. I received the phone call from the administration team saying that my room was ready. I packed up a suitcase full of clothes, and my X-box, and was on my way. With out wasting any time, they put my port in as soon as I arrived.

                                                       Day Negative 9

11/3/15

One of the scariest moments of my life.. On this day, every single cell in my body died and at the same time, my old self died. I was extremely scared. The night before, I had the worst sores in my mouth which stopped me from eating my favorite burger which I ordered in from Joy burger. That was one of my favorite go-to chemo meals. I was super pissed that I wasn’t going to be able to eat that anymore for quite some time. Ha… Think about what I just said.. I was fighting for my life and there I was, more worried about the burger. I guess I didn’t know what was to come

 

Day Negative Eight

11/4/15

My energy level was still semi-okay. I remember playing Madde

n.. I was getting super frustrated because I was losing and when I get angry, I grab my hair/ rub my head. As I rubbed my head this time, my hair started to fall out. I s

creamed for my mom to show her my hair but I wasn’t scared… I was more happy to see that

the medicine was working. I was, however, scared of what my life was to become. I called the nurse in and told her what happened. She explained to me that it was normal and offered me a haircut. $20 later and this person I once knew vanished so quickly/ and I started to turn into a cancer patient

Day Negative Seven/Six

Heavy PAIN MEDS !!

Pain level was extremely high. I didn’t understand who or what I was anymore. Just the year before, I was this completely “normal” person and here I was laying on this death bed that I always thought belonged to someone in their 80s+. Life started to get real and I asked myself questions of what I was doing with my life and where I wanted to go from here. These two days taught me a lot about myself because I was left in isolation. For the first time in my cancer journey, I was too sick to be told what to do or even fight for what I thought I needed to do. I just let the world spin just like it’s

supposed to…

Day Negative 5

I was in and out of sleep… Earlier in the day, Ana (my fiancé) was busy getting

pictures together to start making my wall. She wanted to give the hospital room a piece of something that felt like home, knowing that I was going to be spending the next month in there. I remember waking up very briefly and looking up at all of the pictures of us. It gave me some really well-needed energy. This girl gave up her life and also killed her DATs all while making me feel like I was the only thing that mattered. The idea of death never once crossed our minds.

                                            Day Negative four to zero

These days I wouldn’t even wish upon my worst enemy. I had C-diff and I’m really sorry for anyone that knows what that is, and happy for anyone that doesn’t. I was in and out of the bathroom like no tomorrow because of an infection I caught from being hospitalized. I had to do a stat CT scan had to warn the tech that it might get messy… which it did.

                                                             DAY ZERO

Words can’t explain this day. It was so unreal. A huge frozen fridge full of my cells was brought into my room which was when I knew I was closer to returning back home. Since they just killed all my old cells, they were replenishing my body with these. I had this amazing nurse that gave me back the cells I previously harvested. Strange, but they tasted like garlic as it was pushed through my IV. There was no pain and all I felt was gratitude.l

                                                               Day 1 -7

I got better with time and was discharged a day before Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving day (a day later) I watched the Eagles play in the morning and then had to be rushed back to the ED because of some complications.

                                                          Day Current.

After a year’s worth of some really bad complications, from me losing over 150 pounds, to people just not knowing what the right thing is to say… life has been HARD. When I got back home, I forgot what it was like to be a person. This month of me fighting for my life taught me how strong I was. There wasn’t going to be anything or anyone telling me how I should live my life going forward. This kind of threw people off. They didn’t know how to act around me because the empathy I thought they were giving me was in fact sympathy. Even after I told to them how I felt, they still chose to do/ say what they feel is right. I let go of a lot of people and a lot of hurt in order to really find what my happiness it

This was my first, and also mine and Ana’s 7 year anniversary. Don’t lose sight in where you came from.  Don’t lose your story because one person failed to understand you. Follow me to a world of empathy and allow us to share each other stories, and what we want to become, rather then to be judged and lost in what society or people don’t understand. This is my cancer story and this is why I am the way that I am. Life told me to give up in so many ways and I fought through them all. Love yourself so that others can love you, too.