Positivity Despite Relapse
My junior year of high school brought a whole new meaning to the saying when it rains it pours. Like any other seventeen-year-old girl, I thought I was invincible. I was an honor student. I danced on my school’s dance team. I had all the friends I wanted, including the “perfect” boyfriend. On February 18th, 2010, all of that changed.
Devin Duncan
After a sharp pain on my left side, under my ribs woke me up, I made a four a.m. trip to the hospital. We thought I was just hurt from a long dance practice that day, but fifteen hours later, the doctor told me what was wrong: I had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Although it was shocking, it wasn’t my first time hearing this news. I was originally diagnosed with this disease when I was not quite four. I underwent two and a half years of treatment then spent the next 13 years in full remission. Getting cancer again was so far back in my mind that even my closest friends didn’t know I had it before.
To say that relapsing after such a long time of being cancer free was unfair would be an understatement. In the beginning I asked myself over and over, “Why me?” Why should I be the one to have cancer? Why should I have to go through two years of chemo twice while some people never have to? Why should I have to miss my entire senior year? Why should I be forced to stop dancing on my dance team?
At some point before my treatment, while reading an article, I noticed this anonymous quote, “No matter what you’re going through in life, someone is always going through something worse.” At that moment my entire outlook on my situation changed. Instead of asking, “Why me?” I began to ask myself, “Why not me?” What would make me so special that I shouldn’t have to ever go through anything hard? I was going to have to face this cancer, whether I wanted to or not.
I had a choice on I how I handled the circumstances there were handed to me. I could choose to be happy, or I could choose to be sad. I chose to be happy. I didn’t let cancer beat down my spirits. Instead, I used my diagnosis to help other families. I am now a representative for three different cancer organizations—The Sunshine Kids, Angels in Action, and The Snowdrop Foundation— because I want to help inform as many people as I can about the daily battles children with cancer face. I was featured on the front page of the Houston Chronicle and numerous times on various news channels. My school voted me Homecoming Queen, and I have been blessed with the opportunity to meet some incredible people.
As much as I, like any seventeen-year-old would, love the attention I am receiving, I am more in awe of the amount of awareness I’ve been able to raise for a cause that is so important to me. There is nothing I love more than hearing a parent of a child with cancer tell me that I made their child’s day by talking to them in clinic. That’s why I plan on going to college to become a social worker in cancer clinics. I want to continue to help children and families that are in the same situation that I’m in now.
I am a senior in high school now. I’ve been in treatment since February, and it will last for another year and a half. When people ask me how I’ve stayed so positive, I always refer them to another anonymous quote I treasure. “When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always be worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.” Yes, I do have my moments where I breakdown. Yes, I hate going through chemo and getting that nauseous feeling. And yes, I do wish this wasn’t happening to me, but I was blessed with the knowledge that I could be going through worse. That it could be something even harder to handle. But I’ve done this before. I can do it again.
I see families every day that are going through things that are far worse than what I am going through, so I look to them for courage. I look at their situations and realize that I should count my blessings. I have an amazing family, a wonderful support group, and the best friends anyone could ask for. So remember, the will of God will never take you where the His grace will not protect you.
Visit Devin’s CaringBridge page here.