The Worst Year of My Life

In 2016 my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was right in the middle of my sophomore year of high school. I did not know what was going to happen with my mom. I did not know if she was going to be okay. I ended up not going to school for about two months and teaching myself at home.

The Diagnosis

In late November of 2015, I stayed home from school sick one day. While I was in bed, my mom had gotten a phone call downstairs. It was from her doctor. She did not realize I could hear her conversation from my room. I overheard my mom get the news that she had breast cancer. After overhearing that news I got very scared. I didn’t know what was going to happen to my mom, or even how serious the cancer was.

School

After that day, I stayed home the next day to try and spend as much time with my mom as possible. I then stayed home another day, and another day, until it was three months later and I hadn’t been to school. During this time, my mom was going to my school to pick up the school work that I had missed while I was out so I could complete it at home and not fall too far behind in my education.

I taught myself all of my coursework for the majority of my sophomore year of high school. Towards the end of my time at home, not going to school, it became a fight between my mom and myself about me not going.

Treatment

Every day my mom would come into my room and try to convince me to go to school that day. I would then argue with her for a while until she would eventually give up because she could see I was not going to budge on the topic. I was very anxious about my mom. I was also very anxious about not having been at school.

I thought that if I were to just suddenly go back to school after not being there for three months, everyone would look at me weird, or ask me questions about where I had been. This added anxiety about going back to school on top of my already existing anxiety about what was going to happen to my mom just made matters worse.

My mom ended up taking me to see multiple different therapists to try and get me to go back to school. There had been talk of putting me in an inpatient program to get me back to school if I couldn’t get back on my own. This thought scared me even more. One of the therapists had me work in baby steps to eventually get to school. I started out by driving to the end of my street. Once I was comfortable with that, I would drive down to the end of my development. Then I would drive a little bit further to my school. I would do this until I eventually made it to my school. Once I actually got to school I would stay for part of the day until I felt comfortable staying the whole day.

This exposure therapy helped me work in small steps to reach a bigger goal. it helped me break down an overwhelming task at the time into much more manageable steps. At a time where I was overly anxious, having smaller steps to accomplish seemed much easier for me to do.

Actually being back at school wasn’t as bad as I originally thought it was going to be. My first full day back was on the day of my mom’s surgery. This was scary for multiple reasons. The first being, I was nervous about how I would get through the whole day at school. The second reason was that I was going to be in school while my mom was in surgery. This meant that I couldn’t talk to my mom before her surgery or see how she was doing during it.

At the end of that first day back, my aunt picked me up from school and drove me into New York City, where my mom was having her surgery. At this point, I was feeling a little better because I had already gotten over one of the major obstacles of the day. Now all I needed to do was wait for my mom to get out of surgery. We were almost to the city when we got a phone call that my mom was out of surgery and was doing well. This was a huge sigh of relief for me. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

Recovery

After my mom’s surgery, I was back at school full time. She was doing really well. She didn’t need chemo or radiation. All she had to do was take medication to keep the cancer from coming back. She had to do this for five years following her surgery.

Reflections

Looking back at everything, my mom already had a lot on her plate dealing with breast cancer. I didn’t make anything easier for her during this time by staying home from school. I just added more stress to her life during this time.

I was nervous about what was going to happen to my mom. I thought the best way for me to deal with this was by staying home with her. My logic was that if something were to happen or go wrong, I could be there and spend as much time with my mom as possible. I also didn’t know how severe her cancer was. Now I know that it could have been much worse and my mom was lucky.

I realized I was much smarter than I ever thought I was. I was able to teach myself topics that I had never learned before and it came easy to me. I also realized I was much stronger than I thought that I was. I was able to get myself back to school during the most anxious time of my life.

It is now five years later and my mom is still healthy and doing well. I look back at this time in my life in amazement that I was able to get through it. Throughout that whole time, my mom would say a quote to help her get through it and would say it to me to help me feel better. She would say “it is what it is.” This really helped because it showed me that we can’t control the reality of a situation and whatever happens is the way it is supposed to be.

For anyone else going through this, I would tell them to take each day as it comes. It is hard in the moment but you have to try your best to keep a positive attitude about what is going on. You have to trust the process and hope that everything will be okay.