2 parents 1 illness

Throughout the course of childhood, many children are faced with obstacles that help shape them as individuals. May it be dealing with divorce, struggling to fit in, meeting educational requirements, or many other potential hardships.  Growing up I had an arguably comfortable life, although my father is in the military, I enjoyed moving around from state to state and meeting new people, my family could easily call any place home.

In 2008, my father was serving in Iraq and had discovered a cut on his tongue, the only thing that was peculiar about this cut was that it seemed to be there for quite some time. This eventually led to an agonizing pain within his mouth, he was then sent to a German hospital to have this cut examined and was thankfully told it just needed disinfection. As the pain continued my father decided to get a second opinion at a hospital located in Washington. After many tests and scans, we were informed that my father had been diagnosed with oral cancer.

Being a 12 year old in the 7^th grade, I knew two things about cancer; people lose their hair from it and sometimes die. My entire 7^th grade experience began to fall completely apart, as I didn’t want any form of pity I refused to inform my friends of the situation, ending in the sudden failure of my friendships. As my father was undergoing treatment my sister and I had to live with different people almost every other week as my mother would make constant trips to Washington to support him. The stress of what seemed like never ending treatment began to take its toll on my grades and emotions. 

Once my father was finally moved to a Texas hospital I was able to see him for the first time in almost a year. This made things even worse, the image of my helpless, ill, in pain, and ultimately dying father made it even more difficult to sleep at night and focus in the day. The sour scent of a hospital and aching feeling it gives my stomach will forever be ingrained into my memories.
Finally my father was released from the hospital and sent home, he had a hole in his trachea with a tube jammed in it to help him breathe. Accompanied by this percolating hole in his neck was a long, thin tube of which was inserted into his nostril and continued down to his stomach. Through this tube was how my father received necessary nutrients, every day around 5:00PM I had to get a funnel like object, set it in the top of this tube, then slowly, carefully pour this creamy, red yellow colored liquid into the tube of which smelled like a disgusting flavor of fruit loops. To this day I cannot eat fruit loops. This went on for maybe a month or two, until finally my father was completely released from all aids and began to heal naturally.

Just as life began to fall back into the normal routine and all became simple and easy again, in 2010 my mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. This cancer had made it to my mother’s lymph nodes, meaning the cancer could easily spread all throughout her body unless immediately removed. This left no room for reaction; my mother was what seemed like instantly put under the knife. I was a freshman in high school by this time and fully prepared for everything that the cancer might come with.During my father’s treatment he underwent radiation, not chemo-therapy therefore he was able to keep his hair, but my mother was to go undergo chemo and as we all came to the realization of what this would bring, my father shaved his head to match and my sister and I greatly considered joining. Before the chemo my mother had her hair cut to a boy cut to get used to the idea of shorter hair and her and I went wig/hat shopping. The optimism my mother seemed to posses was contagious and inspiring.

When the treatment finally began, only a small amount of optimism could be seen, the constant pain my mother seemed to be in was even more painful to watch. Seeing her struggle to hide it hurt even more, she began sleeping most of the day away due to the heavy dose of pain medication she began consuming. As her head slowly begin balding her spirit died even more, the wigs weren’t enough, hats made it worse, she could barely look in a mirror. I began to have a true love for flowers once I realized how happy they made her to receive them, almost every week I would come home with  different colored flowers and ribbon. The sweet scent flowers left was much more pleasant than the hospitals, the bright red roses or flaming yellow dandelions always made her stress ridden face softer.  As she slept I made sure the flowers were put in a dazzling crystal vase with silver words embodied into the side given to her by my father. I watered these vital gifts as carefully as I fed my father through a tube. The second the flowers began to brown and wilt I would remove and replace them, the sight-the idea of death was never welcome.

         My father was declared officially healed of cancer in the year 2014, 5 years after his diagnosis. Although my mother’s treatment is over, she has regrown her hair, and regained her confidence. I still believe she is fighting cancer to this day, as she seems to constantly be under the knife. As she has another 5 to 6 years left before being declared cancer free my mother has helped me gain an optimistic point of view on life and although these experiences forced me to mature earlier than most 18 year olds I am proud to say that both of my parents are cancer survivors.