Me

     It’s tough. It’s tough at any stage of life. Cancer is something that happens in movies, in the news, maybe to someone that we know, but not to the people that we love, and certainly not us. Before we get it, we think we’re immune to it. We have some special ability to ward it off and gracefully avoid it when we can. As a 19 year old, it was certainly not in my plans. I just finished my first year of university and had just moved into an apartment with friends. I was so excited. In my first year of university, I was preoccupied with school work, so I rarely went out. And when I did, it was to the good old spot on the 13^th floor of Robarts Library. But this was going to change. This year, I was going to have fun. I was going to experience life and be free for the first time in my life. Well, that didn’t exactly happen.

     I was diagnosed with metastasized stage 4 Ewings Sarcoma cancer. Fuck. Now what? I remember being calm in the emergency room when he came in and told me that I had cancer. He then told me that it was all over my body. He started to list off all the places that was sick and that was when I lost it.         

     This can’t be right. I was the basketball player. I was the lifeguard. I was the cross country runner. I was the skier. I was the tall and strong one. This isn’t me. This can’t be me. But it is. I have cancer.