And the winner is…Ayssa Villa
The Winning Essay
Summation of My Journey Through Cancer
I watch as the elevator glides past the fourth floor and stops on the eighth. I exit its doors, not as a patient this time. I wear a badge that weighs heavier than it looks, its mission statement reading, “Heal the body, mind, and spirit of those we touch.” It feels right.
Five years prior, it was different. Every week, I walked out of that elevator and onto the fourth floor, a place where needles, monitors, the sting of antiseptics, and the hum of my IV pump became routine. Every number had its margin and meaning. A surgical three-millimeter margin of error, just 0.12 of an inch, was the difference between my leg remaining mine or being replaced by metal. Each visit to this floor also guaranteed measurements in milliliters, whether it was the milliliters of chemotherapy that left me with too many side effects to count or the measured doses of drugs that promised relief but delivered little.
Eighteen centimeters of my cancerous tumor were removed, yet osteosarcoma was not just what had been growing in my leg. It was chunks of hair that would be found on my pillow. It was the school year I was forced to abandon. It was late-night emergency hospital visits, thirty-plus hours under anesthesia, foot-long scars down my thigh, and years of leaning how to walk again.
Six rounds of chemotherapy later, I rand the bell, declaring myself a cancer survivor. Initially, I believed survival was a quantitative concept, with defined milestones and numbers I can track. So, I concentrated on anything I could count, like milliliters or rounds of chemo, as it the experience could be completely comprehended by stats alone. However, the more I relied on numbers, the more I realized that they were unable to fully capture what cancer meant. It was the qualitative side that could.
Unlike numbers, qualitative traits are fluid and shape us in ways statistics never could. My 66% survival rate does not show the frustration of additional surgeries and setbacks or the fear of relapse after every follow-up. Equally important, it cannot capture the triumph of ringing the bell or the happiness of buying a shampoo bottle for the first time in many months.
Reflectively, as my body has healed over the last five years, I’ve reconciled with my past after years of struggling against it. I’ve learned to balance both sides, quantitative and qualitative. By using them simultaneously to guide my growth and motivation, I have come full circle.
Proudly, as the elevator stops on floor eight of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, I make my way to the Kids’ Child Life Zone. I greet the other volunteers with a smile as I prepare for the kids to come in. I make it my silent mission to create moments they can simply be kids and not patients. One morning, I made eight batches of slime with a girl, one for each family member; another evening, I danced with a group of kids at the hospital’s prom; other times, I simply listened.
Surprisingly, what started as a way to give back led me to rediscover myself within the very same walls that challenged me. Although I can now declare myself cancer-free, I’ve chosen not to be free of cancer’s role in my life. Instead, I have embraced it as a lens through which I understand the tenderness and delicacy of life. This perspective has driven my passion for pediatric oncology, a field where I can transform myself from patient to purpose. My journey through cancer will forever fuel my dedication to healing the next generation of patients.
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