At the beginning of the school year I was very tired. It was hard to walk from the one side of the hallway to the other without feeling out of breath. My gums would bleed all the time and I was covered in bruises on my arms and legs. People kept telling me I was super pale and my lips were white. I started to worry myself. My nurses called me down to the health office everyday checking my vitals and seeing if I was just sick or something. A couple days later one of my teachers saw me faint in Choir (1st period ) and I was sent straight to the doctors. I was very worried. After I got my blood work done and Glen’s Falls Hospital, I went to my last dance class I would ever be at (I didn’t know that at the time ). When I got home from dance my mom was on the phone with Albany Med and they were saying I needed to come to the hospital as soon as possible because my blood counts were at very scary numbers.

When we got to Albany Medical Center the next morning I didn’t know what was going on. My mom didn’t want to scare me so she said I had an appointment with a hematologist about my blood work results. (In my mind I thought I was just anemic, so I wasn’t scared.) I started to get scared when they had to take more blood work because I have a fear of needles. The people in the ER were very nice. After they took some blood they said they had to put it through some certain tests. They didn’t say what they were for. Then one of the Nurses that were working in the emergency room came in my room and said “we have some bad news, but don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay” . Then she said she wasn’t sure but it might be cancer.

When she said the word cancer I was speechless. Never in a million years would’ve though I would have cancer. But the lady continued to say it was okay and they wanted to come out and say the worst possible news first instead of babying the bad news. I agreed with her. After another couple hours my Oncologist came into my room and said that I had cancer. He told me he didn’t know all the details but he said he was glad I came when I did.

Later I found out I had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Which is cancer of the blood. When I found out I was sick I didn’t know what to think. I thought in my head that I didn’t want to die, I still have my whole life ahead of me. My mom, Papa, and my cousin Rachael were with me when we found out. Of course everyone was a mess, crying, asking a thousand questions, they didn’t know what do.