A Tumultuous Semester
Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world and everything doesn’t always pan out the way we anticipate. This semester has by far been my most challenging in regards to my academics and personal life. There were many times where I felt that I couldn’t stay afloat with everything that was going on around me. However, I do feel that I was able to still comprehend and retain the central message of WSP 101 and the entire program as a whole. As some people may know my father was diagnosed with an aggressive and rare form of leukemia in March of this past year. This cancer quickly spread to his spine and other organs to his body within a matter of months. My family and I were completely blindsided by this horrible disease and it left us not knowing what to do. The only thing we knew how to do was to come together as a family and persevere together.
Come the summer of 2015 and my dad was still in the hospital. Receiving round after round of chemotherapy and radiation, we felt that there would be no end to this battle. The summer was especially hard for me because I had to works five days out of the week commuting about thirty minutes a day. It may not sound like a lot, but every second that I spent away from my dad felt like a dagger to the heart. That summer I learned an abundance about myself. I learned that I am a very strong person who always looks at things with an optimistic mindset. I also learned that a family bond is the strongest bond that can hold people together in a time of turmoil.
After the intense summer was over I began to worry about the start of the semester. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my classes or coursework because of my family obligations. I worried that my professor weren’t going to understand or work with my situation. And unfortunately, I wasn’t wrong to worry. While all my professors understood, one of them didn’t. This left me with a whole new obstacle to overcome during the semester.
Halfway into the semester I felt good about how I was doing. I was keeping up with assignments and tried to finish all my reading and projects for all my classes while still sleeping over the hospital every night in order to keep my dad company. That’s when my family got hit again with horrible news. In turned out that the chemotherapy and radiation weren’t having any effect on my dad and that he would need a bone marrow transplant to survive. When I discovered this my heart sank to my stomach because I knew that finding a bone marrow donor was not an easy task to accomplish. Everything around me disappeared and I felt that my whole world was crumbling.
After a month of not finding a donor, the doctors turned to his male blood relatives which are me and my uncle. After extensive testing that lasted two weeks the doctors found that I was a match. This was amazing news for all of us. It meant that I would be able to donate a little part of my life in order to give life back to my dad. My dad had given me life nineteen years ago and I was honored to give a little back now that he needs it.
The bone marrow transplant was a grueling process for me that resulted in me missing a great portion of classes. Specifically in my WSP 101 class, I was unable to keep up with my blogs or class assignments. This made me feel inadequate and regretful. My WSP 101 class was the class where I was able to express myself and my point of view and after missing so many assignments I felt that I lost my student identity.
However, I feel that this journey that I have taken with my family has taught me way more than I could have learned in any class. I learned that when I am pushed to the edge I can keep my cool and persevere through, I learned that my family is my greatest support system, and I also learned that I can overcome a plethora of obstacles when faced with them. I guess you can say that my next step is to take these life lessons and apply it to my learning. Apply my perseverance, resilience, and optimism to my education. However, WSP 101 has taught me how to express my individuality and when going through something as traumatic as what I went through, individuality helps remind you of who you are.
