I flipped through an old family photo album and found a picture of me with pale white skin. In the picture I was lying down on a hospital bed hooked up to with a few tubes in my arm. I couldn't remember how young I was in this picture, but it did bring a sense of deja vu even though everything was extremely fuzzy. I remember my family telling me stories of when I was in the hospital, I was diagnosed with  A.L.L.(Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia). I had the virus when I was very young and can barely remember anything mostly because of the chemotherapy. I guess this picture of my smiling, pale face with hopeful eyes was me going through the treatment.

There was a tree in the background of the photo, must have been Christmas time. My parents told me they all sat around my hospital bed and we all opened our presents, I got a Nintendo 64 and (from what they told me) I played it for hours either by myself or with my brother. That console must have started my addiction to video games, even though I was never very good at them. My grandmother told me that on some days I would be happy and full of life, but on other days I was in great amounts of pain. When things did take a turn for the worse, doctors didn't know if I was gonna make it. My uncle said the doctors stuck this large and thick needle into my spine (maybe to see if they could get the infected T cells out?) but I never really paid attention to the reason why. He said that the pain numbing drugs didn't work and they heard my screams of agony as the doctors continued the process. "It was hard for everyone." My uncle uttered "It was especially hard for your brother to hear as he cried on your mother's shoulder."This came as some surprise, I never though me and my brother were that close, almost felt like he didn't want me around because I embarrassed him all the time. He told me that was never true, he always cared about me and he wishes he could go back, to be a better brother to me. As I look at this photo all I can think is: at least I still have a full head of hair.
Under the tree in the background is a plushy of Mickey Mouse. Dad tells me it was from when we got a free trip to Disney World from the Make a Wish Foundation earlier that year in the summer. When he mentioned that a really hazy flashback played in my head of me, Mickey Mouse, and Donald Duck all having pancakes together. I remember the smell of syrup and bacon filling the air, the smile on Mickey's face and another on Donald's, the glaring bright sun filling the area with natural light revealing the presence of my parents and older brother. It was all the memory I could recollect from that entire trip.That and the feeling of being on an airplane, I saw nothing but clouds outside the little window on the plane, of course my mom told me that I was asleep most of the time and I woke up every once in awhile to look out at the big and  beautiful sky until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

The chemotherapy was scheduled for only a year, then turns out I had made a massive recovery in no more than a month. The doctors were astonished to say the least, they had never seen such a speedy recovery like this before so they sent me home with my family. I still came in to do some blood tests and for a while everything was fine until one october afternoon. I was taken in as usual and had my blood tested. The cancer had mutated and had spread like wildfire throughout my body. My brother was furious when he heard the news in the waiting room. “You dumb f***ers!!” he said “You said he was gonna be ok! You lied!! You f***ing lied!!” he continued. My mother told me he was only seven when he said that to all of the staff responsible for treating the leukemia. The treatment continued for three more years after that, along with some experimental drug the doctors used to help with my parents consent.

After years of fighting and suffering things were starting to look up. The pain slowly started to go away, I was able to do more than just lay in the hospital bed and play video games. I never really saw myself as something special or seen anything as any real accomplishment in my life, but being here and able to type words you’re currently reading is nothing less than a miracle to say the least. After hearing the whole story, I just wanna help anyone else who has been in the same condition I was, to hopefully have them able to write their own papers about either how they remembered the experience or how their family remembered it.

The only thing to do now is to graduate and make something of the second chance i’ve been given.