Inspirational Stories

The news came that I had been dreading after three days of being hospitalized. Finally, they would tell me my diagnosis. Why my blood counts were critically low. Why the pain in my right leg was excruciating. Why morphine didn’t touch that pain. Since arriving at the hospital, my inner dialogue was on repeat, “What’s wrong with me? Somebody please just tell me everything is going to be fine."

“Michele, you have leukemia.” I will never forget my response. “Phew…at least it’s not cancer.”
I looked at my loved ones faces. They all looked at their hands, the ground, anything but at me. To my surprise, no one was laughing. That’s when I realized and said, “Oh, it IS cancer.” I started crying and immediately apologized over and over to my family for getting sick. In my mind, I had ruined our lives. I had ruined everything. Undoubtedly, that was the worst day of my life up to that point.

It felt like a nightmare. “How could this be happening to me? Wake up, Michele. Please wake up.” Sadly, this nightmare was my reality. I had cancer and I was only 30 years old. The news in addition to the agonizing pain was just too much to handle. The first hospital stay ever in my life ended almost a month later and with a cancer diagnosis. I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). It had taken over 85% of my body and I was given less than a 10% chance of surviving. I remember it was a very wet January, constantly raining and storming that month. My mom said it was the angels crying because I had cancer.

Fast forward to almost 10 years later, and against all odds, I'm still here. Like so many cancer fighters and survivors, my story is one filled with bravery, hope, love, pain, and such deep sorrow. Had I known how difficult and long the journey was going to be, I'm not sure I could have fought as hard as I did. That's who I am though. For me...the less I knew, the better. I didn't want the dirty details. I didn't need to hear the statistics. I knew it would only shatter me. So that was my approach to never giving up. My other secret weapon was laughter. Laughter is the best medicine after all. Laughter is how I made it through leukemia, my double cord blood transplant and the intense recovery. Laughter is what kept us going when my mother & primary caregiver was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer the following year while still taking care of me. Once again, it's what got me through my divorce in 2017 and all the ups and downs thereafter that comes along with being a cancer survivor.

I must believe that all my pain & suffering has a purpose and my new journey in life is to figure out what that is.