Leukemia and school

When I was diagnosed I was 13. Difficult age. I was in seventh grade and until 6th grade I had always loved school and had always excelled in this field. I was a very ambitous student, but not a nerd. I had quite a few friends. My best friend at this time somehow chose a new best friend in autumn (they later both became teen moms :)). I went through a little depression phase and stopped liking school because my former best friend and her new friend started bullying me. It hurt. A lot.

When was diagnosed I was not really sad that I would not be able to go to school in the next few months. In the hospital you can get about 12 lessons per week, depending on how fit you are (you seldom get all 12). I wanted them all. I was scared of having to repeat the class because of my illness. And I tried hard to get them. Even if I could not really concentrate and had to vomit 3 times during my lesson. My parents became my additional teachers who worked with me after the "real" teacher had left. In Germany you have quite a few subjects. Your main subjects in seventh grade are Maths, German, English and a second foreign language, in my case French. (Then you have biology, physics, chemistry, politics, history, music, art depending on which grade you are in. My dad did biology and chemistry with me, I skipped the rest.) I have always loved English and any other language. But at this time tried to get away from maths. In the beginning the teacher always asked what I wanted to do. I always wanted to study one of the languages. Soon she realised I was quite good at them and rather needed help in maths. Oh, how I hated it. When I was not in the hopsital a different teacher visited me at home.

School was my way of escaping from my illness. I could not really much sport except my walks. Some kids are not in the mood to do school during this time at all which is completely understandable. For me it was extremely important. Yet, I did not visit my school during that time. I did not want them to see me this weak and without any hair. My true friends visited me sometimes and brought cards. I always crossed the names of my bullies out.

I went back to school after Christmas in eighth grade. I was TERRIFIED. I was scared of my class mates' reaction. I still looked quite different and did not want to have a pity party thrown. For the past 10 months I had had the whole attention of a teacher and wa able to work at my pace. Now I had to sit still for the entire day. The beginning was tough. Everybody was very careful with what they said and did in my presence. And I just wanted to be normal again so bad. The teachers were amazed by how much I had managed to study during my time away and always praised me. For me this was hard since I my grades were not as excellent as before. I never really listened to them. Finally, in grade 9 things got normal again.