My Leukemia story- how it all started

As mentioned before, I was diagnosed with leukemia ten years go. I have been planning to write it all down before, but I never really did. Only parts of the whole drama. So, I hope I can stick to my plan now.

In autumn 2001 I felt strange. I was in seventh grade. My best friend at that time was angry with me for reasons I never fully understood. Additionally, my body was changing; I was becoming a woman. I was not too excited about it. I felt not ready. I ran track, but I did not like my coach nor did my brother. Around Christmas we quit. I did not feel well. I was exhausted, always tired and I sweated like crazy, especially at night. I was ashamed of my body and tried to hide it. Around Christmas random vomitting was added to the fun. Once, I threw up at school. Extremely embarassing! In January I got pneumonia. I slept for almost two weeks; in my brother's room because I had vomitted on the carpet in my room= temporarily out of order. After I had battled the pneumonia, I went back to school and waited to grow stronger again. Instead, I kept feeling sick. We went back to the doctor who took blood and was very friendly and made a lot of jokes. When he called us back in after he had gotten the results of the blood test, the smile was gone from his face. He told my mom and me that I had leukemia. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common kind,to be exact. He told us to go to the hospital for further tests and treatment the next morning. When he left the room my mom started sobbing uncontrollably. She crumbled into a ball on her chair and cried like I never had seen her do before. Of course I knew what she was thinking. As a little child I had asked my parents if one could survive cancer. They said, no, most people die after some time. Eventually, we came home where my mom told my dad and my 11- year- old brother about our afternoon. I went to bed and slept some more.

The next morning we went to the hospital where I met more doctors, bald kids and needles. I was cranky, I did not want to talk to anybody and just wanted to be left alone because I felt so tired. Finally, I was allowed to lay in a bed. It was not my bed at home, but I did not care. I could sleep. Forget all this madness around me. While I was sleeping doctors decided that I was supposed to have four cycles of chemotherapie followed by radiation. When I woke up, a doctor in his forties sent my worn out parents out of the room and started talking to me. First, he asked me questions about school, my hobbies and my family. I told him that I felt that my parents did not believe that I would be healed. He then gave me the basic information about my sickness. He said that my survival rate was not bad at all. During this conversation I decided, with a little help from this amazing doctor, that I would live. As easy as it sounds, he told me to believe that I would live until, if, I was proved wrong. When my teary parents came back into the room, I told them exactly this. For the next months or years, the believe that I would be able to win this fight, never changed. I knew I had to fight like crazy (never did I expect that it would be so hard), but I was convinced and this is what I told everybody:" I have leukemia and it sucks, but I AM GOING TO LIVE!!!!

I wish that it would have been that easy for those who loved me. While I was mostly drugged up and sleeping during the next months, especially my parents and my brother had to deal with sleepless nights and the thoughts what if... ? To this day I believe it is easier to have cancer yourself than having a loved one who has it. This is pure torture on earth.