Chemotherapy and Radiation: A Pain in the Butt

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

The first time I heard this phrase, I was watching the movie, "Forrest Gump." I have to say that I agree completely. Life is full of mysteries; a person does not know what their future may hold. In some cases, good things may happen to them or in other cases, bad things may happen. The most important thing is that we should never give up no matter the circumstances.

Like many people, something terrible happened to me. I had cancer...but I did not give up. I believe that every human being was created by God for a purpose. At that point in my life, I felt as if I had not fulfilled my purpose. I had to live in order to find out.

It was not easy. Those days that I spent at the hospital were torture. It seemed as if one day lasted a week, and a week lasted a month. I was trapped in this room, hooked on IV after IV, and my arms and hands were poked a million times. But that was not the worse part. What I hated the most were my chemotherapy and radiation treatments. I know that without the treatments I would not had a chance, but they made me feel so sick.

The first side effect was hair loss. As soon as my hair began to fall, I shaved my head. I just could not stand waking up in the morning and seeing hair on my pillow. Also, I was afraid to brush my hair. My sister helped me to decide to shave my head. She said that I would feel a little bit better. After she shaved my head, I did feel better. Then, a couple of days later, I was completely bald. For the longest time, I had long hair, so it was difficult looking in the mirror and seeing a bald head.  For boys it may not be a big deal, but for girls it is, especially when you are a teenager.

The second side effect was nausea followed by vomiting. Because my treatments were so strong, I was always nauseous. I could not eat anything because I would always feel sick afterwords. Even the smell of food alone would make me feel sick. I lost about 20 lbs. I was already skinny, and losing all that weight did not help at all. I became a walking stick.

On top of that, all of the vomiting irritated my throat. There were days that I could not swallow food or water. My oncologist explained to me that if eating was too painful for me, I could have a feeding tube implemented in my stomach. I thought about it for a while, and I decided to go ahead with the surgery. My parents were against it at first, but after seeing what the feeding tube did for me, they were glad that I went forth with the surgery. Little by little, I gained most of my weight back, and I did not look like a walking stick anymore.

The third side effect was a low immune system. Chemotherapy did not only destroy my cancer cells, but it also destroyed my good cells, which included hemoglobin, white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. My blood counts were so low at times that I needed multiple blood transfusions. Since my blood type is O Rh negative, I can only get blood from an O Rh negative donor. Sometimes, they did not have my blood type available, so I had to wait hours before I could get a blood transfusion.

There were many more side effects involved, but the three side effects that I mentioned above were the most common. Those were the ones that were difficult to get used to.

Even though everything that I went through was a nightmare, I was in good hands. I received my treatments at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey, and I do not regret being a patient there. The doctors and the nurses at the Goryeb Children's Hospital and at the Valerie Center were amazing. They always knew how to take good care of me and how to make me smile. For a cancer patient, being able to smile is the best thing in the world.

And so it Began...

Six years ago, my life turned upside down. I began to live a nightmare that did not have an end. I tried to wake up so many times, but I did not succeed. Only weeks later, I realized that the nightmare did not exist. What I was going through was reality.

I was 17-years-old when I was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma, Stage IV. I had just finished my junior year in high school, when I experienced symptoms in the face and in the neck area. The right side of my nose was clogged, my right eye was swollen, and the right side of my face was numb. At first, I thought that my wisdom teeth were the problem, but after I had them removed because they were impacted, the symptoms continued.

A week after my wisdom teeth were removed, I found a small lump on the right side of my neck. I made an appointment with my physician, and just like in most cases, I was misdiagnosed. The doctor thought that I had a sinus infection, and so he prescribed antibiotics. Obviously, the antibiotics did not work. In the meantime, my symptoms were becoming worse. As each day passed, my eye became more swollen, the lump on my neck kept growing, and my face was still numb.

I made another appointment with my physician, and after the results of my blood work came back negative for an infection of the thyroid gland, he suggested that I make an appointment with an ENT specialist. By then, a month had passed by. When I looked in the mirror, I could barely recognize myself. Was this really me? What was happening? Why couldn't I find the answers to these symptoms? Sometimes I wondered if I would have to live the rest of my life with these symptoms. I felt miserable; I wanted answers. Although my family said that I should not worry about it and that it was probably something that would go away by itself, deep inside, I knew that these symptoms would lead to bad news.

My appointment with the ENT specialist was on August 5, 2005. On August 2, 2005, I woke up to half of a swollen face and to a completely shut eye. My mom rushed me to the ER; there I had my first CT scan of the head. The doctors at the ER contacted the ENT specialist that I was supposed to see at the end of the week, and she said that she wanted to see me as soon as possible. After the ER, my mom and I went to the specialist's office. I was nervous because I was so close in finding the answers that I had been looking for.

As soon as the specialist looks at my CT scan, her jaw drops. Then, her face becomes pale. I thought that she had seen a ghost. My mom looks at me and I look at her; we both did not like the specialist's facial expressions. My heart was beating fast and my hands were sweating. Something is wrong, I thought to myself. Finally, she turns around and says to me, "There's something growing in your sinus cavity."

"It's alive" was the first thing running through my head. What is it? The specialist knew what it was, but she did not say anything because the only proof she had was a CT scan. She needed a biopsy, so she stuck a pair of tweezers up my nose and removed a piece of the mass that was growing inside. OUCH!! I bled and bled and bled, but at that point I did not care. I was glad that I was getting closer and closer to the diagnosis.

The specialist said that I also needed a MRI of the head, so she scheduled one for me for August 5, 2005 (remember this date because it will come up again). When the MRI was over, I had to get the film from the radiologist and I had to return to her office. That day arrived...I had the MRI done and I returned to her office with the films. Oh boy, did I know what was to come! I entered the room and I sat down. This time, my dad and my sister came with me. The specialist opens the films, looks at them and then she looks at me. She said that the results from the biopsy arrived, and just like that she drops the big bomb, "You have cancer," she said.

I must have not heard her because I sat there, completely still. Time had stopped. My head felt lighter. My body was there, but my soul was elsewhere. I stared at her lips while she said those horrible words; I traced them with my mind, but I could not understand what they meant. Then I heard an echo in my ears. It was getting closer and closer. "You have cancer, you have cancer," the echo said. Suddenly, I felt pressure on my shoulder. The nurse had placed her hand on me as a sign of comfort. That's when I burst into tears.

There it was...August 5, 2005, the day when I found out I had cancer. What I remember the most is the fact that my family never left my side after that day. My parents and my sisters were always there for me. Seeing them suffer because of a disease that I had was devastating. Seeing my dad cry for the first time was heartbreaking. They all loved me so much, and they all still do. That's why I had to fight and win this battle.