ArrayasStory

I was diagnosed with cancer when I was sixteen while I lived in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a strange situation because of the Covid epidemic that was beginning. At that time, there wasn’t a way to test whether you had it for the public, so my mother and I assumed that's what was afflicting her, and I was sick for a while; in fact, my whole family had been sick at the same time, so I wasn’t really worried in the beginning. But as their symptoms faded, it just seemed like mine got worse.

I couldn’t sleep. I had horrible headaches and often had a lot of trouble breathing; it was as if someone had shoved cotton balls up my nostrils. My mother took me to my primary care provider multiple times, and I was told I was just overweight, which in hindsight is a little ridiculous considering I weighed the least I’ve probably ever weighed in my adult life.

Even though my symptoms weren’t fading, I tried my best to listen to the doctor and not panic. Then I realized a lump in my neck, which I later found out was a swollen lymph node but at the time I had no idea what it was, and again I went to my primary care provider and was told they could maybe schedule an appointment to look at the tissue of the lump in late September, and it was June at the time.

So again, even though I was scared because of the lack of urgency my primary care physician was displaying, I wasn’t truly panicking; I had planned to go on vacation for the summer. But just to be 100% safe and sure, the day before my flight out, my mother and I went to the emergency room. There, I was asked questions about my shortness of breath and other symptoms, and they immediately wanted to do an X-ray. The X-ray showed that I had pneumonia and some serious fluid in my lungs. They then did a couple of blood tests before the chest tube surgery, and they found cancer in my blood. I was diagnosed with A.L.L. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

In all honesty, the beginning months of chemo are a bit hazy for me. On day one, there was surgery to implant a chest tube to drain the fluid from my lungs, and I had a bad reaction to the sedative they had given me, which was ketamine. Still, immediately after the surgery, I felt like I could finally breathe again. But after that, chemo started.

My hair started to shed quickly, and I also experienced mouth sores early on. I had a bad reaction to ketamine again during the pic surgery and had a seizure, and I lost about a day or two of memory. Thankfully, I was considered in remission after a week of chemo, but I had to finish the 2-year chemo plan. Due to the chemo, I started experiencing some intense stomach pain pretty much every day. I couldn't eat without pain in my mouth, and I couldn't relax because my stomach hurt so much. I was told I had some kidney damage, so they put me on dialysis. I was covered in bruises caused by the chemo and the pic line, and I couldn't use the bathroom. At that point, I was taking laxatives every day along with my chemo. While I had been suffering physically and emotionally, my mom had been struggling to get my care team to cooperate with her.

They wouldn't explain why I had my seizure, and they were refusing to release my medical documents to her so she could better understand everything that was going on with me. By the time the intense chemo ended, we were packing and on our way to Houston to seek better medical care for my cancer. When we got to Houston, there were some immediate hang-ups, but the biggest thing was we were homeless.

The resources we once had in Arizona didn't necessarily translate to Texas resources. As I received the rest of my 2-year chemo plan, we were homeless for pretty much the whole 2 of those years while we were on an immediate housing waitlist, which was a battle all on its own.

We experienced a lot of emotional and physical turmoil as time passed, including but not limited to a car accident and a couple of emergency room trips. Something that had been the hardest for me was the spinal tap. I had been getting them pretty much biweekly and without sedation, and although, at first, I was able to handle them, it seemed like the more I got, the harder and more painful the experience became. I still remember lying in that cold room, lying sideways on that cold table.

The numbing did not take effect for some reason, and feeling what felt to me like an excruciating pain as I sobbed profusely, apologizing for trembling in pain and fear while holding tightly onto the hand of a child life counselor who had come with me for emotional support. So, after I had been prescribed anxiety medication and started requesting to be sedated for my spinal taps. Although that’s not a memory, I’ll likely never forget.

As I was on my journey to health, my mother's health seemed to be waning. We had experienced a car accident while homeless, and things were stressful. It felt like we were on the unlucky side of the coin. Eventually, we were given a Section 8 voucher, and I was able to continue the last months of my chemo, no longer homeless. However, I dislocated my ankle badly during the moving process, so there wasn't much alleviation from the stress, and our car was impounded soon after the moving process was done, which was attributed to more money struggles.

On October 14th, I finished chemo after depression, anxiety, extreme medical trauma regarding surgeries like frequent spinal taps, seizures, pic surgery, dialysis, homelessness, losing my hair twice, and much more. I survived, and I carry that with me. I am now 19, and things aren't necessarily easier.

I'm now facing the possibility of homelessness again and struggling to get help for my mental illnesses, but I have hope for the future, and that's all I can ask for.

I was diagnosed with cancer when I was sixteen...