multiforme, fatal stage 4 brain cancer, and given six months to live. She has chosen to set her…
According to the National Cancer Institute, “In 2015, an estimated 1,658,370 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States” (“Cancer Statistics”). What if one of those cases was your mother? Husband? Grandson? What if more horrifically, it was all three? For Mary Kenyon, that devastating thought became a reality. In just three brief years, she lost her mother, husband, and grandson. All three of them battled cancer, and two of the three died from the disease. Through strength, resilience, and a whole lot of faith, Mary overcame grief and shows true heroism by inspiring people and helping them defeat the same obstacles she faced.…
John, Sally, and their daughter Mary came into therapy wanting to help deal with current issues relating to Mary’s depression and self-harm. They had discovered that Mary had been occasionally cutting herself as well as isolating herself in her room for long hours. Sally had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, which was successfully operated on, and was in remission. From an object relations perspective much of the family’s relationship and way of dealing, or in this case not dealing with Sally’s cancer, was facilitating Mary’s depression. Sally’s cancer had been minimized due to its highly operable nature. Both John and Sally explained to Mary that it was unnecessary to talk about the cancer as her mother had been “cured” already, ignoring the intense feelings of loss, sadness, and anger by all the family members before the positive news. Although this pattern and unconscious rule in their family where issues of intense emotional content were not to be discussed, this highly traumatic event appeared to be the breaking point for Mary.…
Happiness. Happiness and enthusiasm were my first emotions I felt upon hearing about this assignment. I would get to do something kind, for a grade! As soon as the assignment was given, I got right to work on this essay, with my act already in mind. This past December, my friend discovered she had cancer in her hip, which was starting to spread to other parts of her body such as her other hip, her back, and her shoulders. She began to undergo chemotherapy right away, making her extremely sick all the time. Before all of this happened, we used to joke about food and the fact that she ate like our brothers, despite being a stick. Yet with the chemo, the constant tests, and all the stress, she just couldn’t keep anything down. These new changes made her depressed, ashamed, and more isolated. All of this made me extremely upset, as she had always been such a positive, humorous, confident, and fun-loving girl that I looked up to and could always count on.…
Though our whole family shared the burden of my mother’s anger, in my heart I suspected that part of it was my fault and my fault alone. Cancer is an obscenely expensive illness; I saw the bills, I heard their fights. There was no doubt that I was personally responsible for a great deal of my family’s money problems: ergo, I was responsible for my mother’s unhappy life…
Brittany Maynard was born in Anaheim, California in 1984. Living in California her entire life, she was a motivated and driven individual. Graduating with her bachelor’s degree from the University of Berkeley, and later getting her master’s at the University of Irvine. Maynard also traveled abroad to teach education in 3rd world countries to schools and orphanages. Brittany was 29-years-old and married, ready in preparing to build a family and life with her husband. But in January of 2014 she was diagnosed with a Grade 2 Astrocytoma which is a form brain cancer, when she was constantly getting bad headaches. She went on to have surgery in attempt to get rid of the cancer, resulting in a partial craniotomy and resection of her…
When Belinda found she had secondary cancer and she only had a couple years left to live she decided that…
Cancer is something that it very hard to live with, and it generates numerous setbacks in life. The three main characters in this story, Hazel, Augustus, and Isaac live their lives battling cancer. They meet different obstacles every day, and the struggle is dealing with those obstacles. Hazel struggles with lung cancer, and every day she walks around with oxygen tank to help her lungs function. One…
At the time, my family and I felt devastated; we were ill informed about the disease and as the youngest, I felt more lost and terrified than anyone about what would happen. Yet, I could only stare with awe at my mother who remained level-headed and even curious about the disease that she would share her…
My wife passed away six months ago, on June 28, 2011, after she had struggled with cancer for 17 months. For 17 months, we went through cycles of promises of hope for her recovery, followed by announcements that another tumor had been found and they would try a different chemotherapy. Then hope! Then another tumor, a different type of treatment, more surgery, a different hospital, and different promises. Over and over. Yet none of those promises came true.…
A women named Cynthia Amendt was diagnosed with grade four Glioblastoma. She was a teacher, and at first she thought that she wasn’t going to be able to teach again as she says “ I thought my teaching days were over.” She had treatment in…
You’re visiting the hospice for the twenty third day in a row, the bright flickering of the fluorescents and the squeaking of the linoleum floor greet you as you walk in. You are visiting your great grandmother, whose ninety three years old with a broken neck, who is unable to speak or eat. She hasn’t talked to you in several weeks due to the feeding tube and has lost the ability to move. She is a hollow shell of the woman she once was and her bright blue eyes have been fading endlessly every day. Her funny and bubbly attitude has become crushed and every single day as you leave you think to yourself if she should still continue living or not with the way she is. That’s when she’s able to finally talk and whispers “I don’t want to live anymore,”…
We all face major hardships in our life, but I’ve met very few that have gone through as many as my grandma has. Being born into a world of war and terror is simply unimaginable, but my grandma had to go through it all. Never seeing what life is truly supposed to be like seems depressing, and not knowing when it will end seems even more. My grandma may argue that for her it wasn’t that bad because she didn’t know that life could be any better and was accustomed to living in a war, but from an outside point of view I will never really understand. At the end of the day, this strong woman pulled through and was able to find success. Looking back at her past, my grandma says that she is grateful for the opportunities she was given. My grandma had to go through all the phases of a hero’s journey including the departure, the initiation, and the return.…
(AHIMA 2010) Some cancer survivors have been trained and equipped to help other patients go through the cancer process and decisions that will have to be made. Many of these patient navigators bring more than just a wealth of experience of the diagnosis and treatments, but also an understanding of what the diagnosis feels like on a deeply personal level. They bring an additional dimension in helping other cancer victims manage their circumstances with empathy and…
Winning a million dollars can lead your life into many different directions. If I won a million dollars I’d try to focus on managing it wisely, because money runs out if it’s not used correctly. Many people today find themselves in debt from spending it too quickly. Statistics show that nothing but failure comes out of spending while no money is going back in. There are numerous things that can be accomplished with a million dollars.…