Cancer is such a hard topic for everyone but for me, it has been
so present in my life that it has shaped me so much. I have about
six family members who have been affected by cancer in my lifetime and it's coming back for my family now.

 

When I was very little my grandfather, Pap-Pap was diagnosed
with breast cancer and he had to go through treatment for it. Being in the hospital was always a sad time because I didn't know what was going on, but my grandfather always made sure
he was happy when I was around. My grandfather beat cancer and has been in remission for many years now.

 

His mother, Great Maw, was the next person in our family to experience cancer. She was diagnosed with lung cancer and was only told she had a few months to live. She chose to not do any treatment because she “didn't want to stay longer than she was supposed to.” This one was hard for me because I was
around 10 years old and I remember going up to her house so many times to see her. When we did the entire family would come
up and we would all hang out with her while she was still alive.
When she passed, I held in all of my emotions until I saw her being taken away in her casket. It became even more apparent
that she was gone and that she had died from cancer once we
had to start cleaning her house.

 

My other grandfather, Papa, was the next person to experience
cancer in my family though he is on my dad's side and not my mom's. My grandfather was a firefighter for many decades and,
because of this, he got cancer. My grandfather was always worrying more about others than himself and it is always something I can see, even today. He was diagnosed with stage four lung, liver, and brain cancer in 2022 and was only given a few months to live. So, I spent as much time as I could with him until the end. I remember the first day going down and
my dad explaining to me that he was using a cane to walk and
he wasn’t going to look the same. We were sorting through stuff
in the storage room because he didn't want to leave my grand-
mother with too much work. He told me he would stay as long
as he could, he tried to do the treatments but it became too much for him and he passed on July 22nd, 2022.

 

My mom and her sister are the most recent people in my family
to experience cancer. They both found out recently that they are carriers of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes which increase your
chances of getting breast and ovarian cancers. My aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer in October and my mom is still currently going through a biopsy to see if there is anything con-
cerning about what they found. Cancer has been here for most
of my life and it has taught me to hold onto those you have before it's too late to hold them ever again.