The time frame is around a year ago, and I am driving home from work when I receive a call from my mom crying, with the tone of fear in her voice, and my heart begins to beat faster and faster. My mom says, “Sam, I need you to come home right now. We need to talk about something serious.” To me, that’s all I needed to hear in order for me to realize what the bad news was. I hang up the phone and feel my eyes tearing up, almost forgetting I am still driving. The whole ride home my mind stays completely blank. As I drive past all the different colored trees, all the different types of cars, and all the different kinds of people, my mind is so mangled that each one of those things look the exact same. All the different trees, cars and people look like blurry, faded, black and white objects, with no meaning or personality. As I drive home, I feel my body tingling with fear and all I can think about is him. I finally approach my house and I pull into my driveway slowly hoping that maybe if I slow down, time will slow down with me. I stop the car and feel the wetness of each tear drowned my eyes and run down my face like individual rivers. The tears keep coming now that my mind does not need to concentrate on the cement roads and staying between the yellow lines on the left and the white line on the right. I finally make it out of the car and see my mom. I knew something was really wrong by that single look she had in her eyes. I get into the house and she begins to tell me everything. “Samantha, the results came back. It’s not what we hoped but he does have it…he has cancer.” My heart dropped to what felt like my feet and I could not believe it. My mother has just told me my two-year old nephew and godson (this young, fun-loving boy who means the world to me) has brain cancer.
This nightmare all started when my nephew and sister lived with us at home and we began noticing Alex’s unusual behaviors. Alex wasn’t like other two-year old children and we could tell that there was something wrong. We knew we had to get him some help and figure out what is going on. We would go to different doctors and tell every doctor the same symptoms over and over, doctor after doctor. We would tell the doctors how Alex would do things like barely walk, constantly lay in the fetal position, and how when he did walk, he was always falling over or off balance. You could look into his eyes and see the fear he had inside, the pain, and the sadness. After many doctor’s appointments, we finally got some tests done such as MRI’s and CT Scans. Unfortunately, once the MRI results were back, that’s when it all became clear. We were informed that Alex had tumors in his brain and down his spine. At that time, we were unsure whether they were malignant or not. The doctors explained that his not wanting to walk was all because of the tumors causing pressure on the brain (hydrocephalus) and it was making it hard for him to hold his head up. After hearing that, I felt the tears run down my face. How could this happen to Alex, just at two years old?
But I will never forget actually seeing those MRI pictures when he was admitted into the hospital. I remember the doctor showing us Alex’s tumors. I have never seen anything like that in my whole entire life. The MRI pictures showed all his tumors in his brain and all the tumors down his spine. The ones in his brain looked like frosting on a cake, spread out all over the place. Then to see the number of masses down his whole spine, one after the other after another, back to back, on top of each other, it was horrible. We got the news that day that his tumors were in fact malignant and he in fact did have cancer. At two years old, my nephew Alex was diagnosed with cancer and began chemotherapy about six months ago.
Going through that experience with Alex, and of course continuing to go through this disease with him has been truly one of the hardest things I think I have ever had to face. The bad news kept getting worse and things never seemed to look up for him. He now is three years old and is legally blind from the pressure in his brain. Chemotherapy seems to be helping a bit and he will start preschool next year learning how to read and write brail. But now, watching Alex do things the way he does completely has changed the outlook on my own life. When I sat down to write this essay about my journey with Alex and his fight with cancer, I didn’t understand how or why HIS willingness, courage and fight could change my life for the better. After writing this essay I discovered that you don’t always look up to the people that are older than you and that people who are older are necessarily more experienced. I realized that Alex is and always will be my role model. Alex has changed my life and in ways has saved my life. Alex has made me want to make my life mean something and makes my life worth living because you never know when life can throw a curve ball at you. After writing this essay and thinking about my nephew, the question really shouldn’t be why did this happen to him, but rather it should be how is it possible that such a young child can persevere through such a terrible disease, still with a smile on his face and I can’t get through some rough days at school, or long days at work? Alex will forever be my role model and I learned that he can be through this essay.
