My experience with cancer has impacted my life by making me a stronger person. I am stronger than I have ever remained. I am currently now 19 years of age with a history of aplastic anemia. My life has completely change since October 2008 at the age of 11. I have experienced two bone marrow transplants to be cured. As part of my two transplants, I received high doses of chemotherapy, multiple blood transfusions, and treatments with circulatory antibiotics for life-threatening infections. It was hard being a cancer survivor, but I made it, and I’m still standing. A cancer diagnosis is hard to take and having cancer is not easy. My pain that I have been through fighting cancer is now my strength. Having leukemia cancer can be very stressful. There were so many days that my body was extremely weak from receiving those painful doses of treatments.
Throughout the whole process I never gave up. I would always pray for better days to come because it knew it was just a matter of time before everything to fall in place. After a while, I looked in the mirror and realized after all those hurts, scars, and trials. I really made it through. I did survive after all I have been through. No matter what I look back, smile and keep moving forward with my life.
I’m a very strong, young, intelligent woman, because God gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers. I consider myself as a soldier, because I have fought a battle with cancer and overcame numerous obstacles. I’m thankful for my victory, because it was a long journey during the whole procedure. I thank my mother for being here with me every step of the way. I know that it was extremely hard for her to watch her oldest child out of four to go through a life-threatening procedure. She was with me every step of the way. During the course of my battle, I would pray and have faith in God. Faith is seeing the light even when all my eyes saw was darkness. I am making sacrifices by doing everything that I can possibly do from my best ability that I can.
After all, I was able to get healthy and graduate with my class. I am honored to be a 2015 Karnack High School graduate in Karnack, Texas. I’m honored to be a freshman at Southern University at Shreveport, Louisiana. My major is Early Childhood Education. I am going to be a teacher and educate children.
My plans after my college graduation is to help people that are going to experience the road that I have traveled. I’m going to tell them that their life is not over, because of cancer. They should stay focused at all times, because there is always a light at the end of every dark tunnel. I’m going to mentor people by doing community service. donating my time, help and tell them my story about fighting cancer.
-Latreva Hill