2011.
I was nine.
Life was fun.
Ballet, gymnastics, ice skating – an activity everyday of the week. My right leg began swelling gradually. In a month it was twice its normal size.
Tennis was first to go: then hip-hop.
Soon, doctor appointments ran my life.
Consultations.
Tests.
Biopsies.
Then more consultations, tests, and biopsies.
One day a stranger separated me from my parents. The brunette led me into a circular room and handed me a book about children with cancer. “You have a big word called cancer,” she said. That single ugly term exploded like a bomb inside my nine-year-old mind, slamming my sensibilities as jolts of shivering fear racked my body.
And so it began.
One chemotherapy after the next. Within a week I needed help with simple tasks like eating and walking to the bathroom. I began losing hair in clumps; my arms shrank to the size of my bones.
Osteosarcoma defined who i was for the next two years of my life.
The catheter in my chest became a part of me. Vomiting was a daily ritual. The severed nerves in my right leg – surgery that narrowly prevented amputation – left me permanently disabled.
Finally, the tumor was shrinking.
Then, my CT scan showed the osteosarcoma had spread to my lungs.
Over the next year, I underwent nineteen additional treatments and two surgeries.
My perception of eternity changed – it now marked the time when a nurse drew my blood until my doctor walked in to tell me my scans were clear.
December 24th, 2012, marked the last day of treatment. Finally, it might be over. I could breathe again.
On June 6th, 2013, I was invited to my friend Melanie’s birthday party, but my parents would not let me go. My immune system was weak. I did not care. I started yelling at my dad, begging him to let me go.
“Why don’t I just die,” I screamed.
“Don’t talk like that,” Dad shouted back. He strode into the house and started crying. I had never seen him do that before. Suddenly, I realized how serious my situation was and how much my parents suffered with me.
***
Nine months later I set out to visit Rady Children’s Hospital. Walking the aisles of the cancer ward, glancing into rooms – some full, others empty – I witnessed a new sea of faces caught in the fight for survival.
I sat next to a patient as she laid her pale face on her pillow, sharing with her the support of positivity that helped me survive. I sat with many patients that day. Their spirits high, their will to persevere unwavering, inspiring me, reminding me of my own battle with cancer.
In retrospect, cancer took a great deal from me–it left me disabled, yet it gave so much in return. Now I am strong, confident, driven to succeed and socially instep with peers ad adults alike. Now I welcome life’s challenges. I am a survivor.
~~Giorgia Nicolaou