Stage 4 Reflective Essay

When I was in third grade my grandfather was diagnosed with stage four carcinoid cancer. Stage four essentially means that it has reached the body 's lymph nodes and thus it can infect nearly any part of the body. While this diagnosis was bad, it never hit me how bad it was until sophomore year when he appeared to have suffered from a stroke. We got lucky however and it was Bell 's Palsy, and while that was definitely better than a stroke it was still worrisome, this was the first time I realized just how bad this was. Then the bombshell hit, my papa was diagnosed with melanoma cancer in his left arm, and as a result had to have all his lymph nodes in that arm removed, and began a new experimental form of chemotherapy alongside what he was …show more content…
I looked at just how lucky we were, most people don’t last a year once diagnosed, and we’re on ten and still counting. Of course it’s not easy, you can’t be positive all the time, there’s off days, where you can’t fathom how it’s getting better and it’s bad, but you can’t let the bad define you. And after the second diagnosis, it was hard, I couldn’t see a bright side, and yet he did, he was still in a sleepwalking type state, but he was superman, he wasn’t giving up, so I followed his example. I can’t lie to myself or anyone else, but I could always maintain that it is possible to beat the odds, no matter how bad it seems. By doing this while nothing has physically changed, it’s become easier to deal with the circumstance. I know I don’t have a cure, and there may never be, but there is always the chance that there will be, or that the chemo may end up working extremely well for him. Things can get better and so long as I continue to think, or hope, that they do get better then it is …show more content…
It’s happened and I can’t change that, the only thing I can do is use that as a base point, it’s terrible and there’s nothing I can do that could make it better except learn from it and look for a silver lining. By looking for a bright side where none seems to exist, or learning from this that it could be worse, you began to understand what is happening and accept that it’s bad. But understanding and accepting the odds does not mean that you are going to give up in anyway shape or form. I understand that the odds are most probably stacked against me, and I understand that they are, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to fight them however. I am going to do what I was taught, keep learning, keep adapting, keep fighting, never give up, and never accept the thought that you have lost. My papa once said that he was superman and I thought he was just out of it, now I get what he meant, superman isn’t infallible, but he is a fighter, he always fights even when he has no chance of winning, he never gives up, and he is hope against the odds. Sure my papa isn’t a super powered alien from krypton, but he is a fighter, he never gives up, and he keeps moving forward. That is how is how all this has changed me, I refuse to try and change what I know I can’t no matter how much I want to. It has taught me to look for positives, keep