February 17, 2008

Part 1. An Unwelcome Summer Guest


(Starting with this post is the story of my 12-year old daughter Yam's story as she recalled and wrote it. Except for the sub-title and some minor checks, I am posting the artciles en toto)

Part 1. An Unwelcome Summer Guest

Imagine this. It’s the last day of school in March 2006. Two months of summer is right in front of you. Then, a fever welcomes it. And after missing the first week of the wonderful summer, BOOM!, a bomb of cancer has exploded in your body. Pretty bad, right? But with medicine, modern technology, tons of love from friends and family and all the help you could get from the whole universe (especially from up above the heavens), it would be an unforgettable chapter to write in your book of life.

A 10-year-old girl was alone at home, lying on the bed. Her family was out to attend her brother’s graduation. She couldn’t come because of a dreadful fever she had, on and off, for almost a week. I was that little girl.

A few days after that, my parents decided to bring me to the hospital, thinking that it might be something serious. I was admitted then and there, and the diagnosis - pallor and anemia. On the third day, my doctor, Dr. Jeannie B. Ong, considered pre-leukemia because of the presence of many immature cells in my bone marrow. It wasn’t long before we found out that it really was Acute Myelogenous Leukemia or AML.

Honestly, I don’t remember what I felt that time when I was told I had cancer. All I knew about cancer at that time was that it was something severe. Plainly put, a severe disease in you body. And from what I have seen in the television, people with leukemia lose their hair. Man, I wasn’t ready to lose my hair that time! NO WAY!

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