While reflecting upon the past sixteen years, I have come to realize that all the problems I have been forced to deal with have not only helped to shape me into the person I am today but, I believe, they have also made me a better person. The most challenging thing I have had to overcome was dealing with my mothers battle with Lymphoma. Because I was only four-years-old when she was first diagnosed, I couldn’t comprehend the seriousness of her cancer while she was sick, all I knew was that there was a “boo boo” inside of my mom and the doctors were going to fix it. Although it was hard for me to deal with the fact that my mom was not able to do all the things the other mothers could, it was all I knew, so the reality of cancer didn’t set in, and create serious problems, until later in life.
The first time my mom went into remission, I was able to experience, for the first time, what it was like to have a healthy mother; which made her relapse even harder for me. When she realapsed, I was still to young to completely understand cancer, but the difference between between me when I was four and a when I was six, is that six-year-old me knew there was a possibility that my mom would die. The many emotions that I experienced during this time only intensified after my moms recovery. As I began to grow up, I started to understand what happened to her, I learned that there’s always a possibility of a relapse, and, as a result of my newly aquired knowledge, I wanted to spend as much time with my mom as possible. Even though it is understandable for a child to want to spend time with their mother, especially after going through such a difficult time, the fear of loosing my mom made it virtually impossible to leave her. Because I went through my moms sickness, not once, but twice, and I was petrified of going through it again. When my friends began to go to sleep-away camp, I was the only person to stay home, I was unable to sleep over at a friends house, and for a...