Inner War
By Gavin De Guzman
It’s a nice evening. A large monitor shines bright in the middle of the room as a PC hums and glows with RGB (red, blue, green). Sitting comfortably in his chair, Andrew plays the online vehicle combat game “War under”, raging at the utter bulls**t that is Top-Tier Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGMs), missiles that can go right through his tank’s thick armor. Andrew describes himself as a ‘Masochist’ as he continues to play through the vicious grind cycle of a tech tree that would make a sane man go mad. Hiding behind a rock, an enemy light tank launches its ATGM straight at him. Unable to get out of the way due to his tank’s cumbersome speed and the enemy player’s ability to remotely guide the missile without leaving cover, Andrew’s tank is instantly destroyed. Rage erupting from the helplessness and inevitability of his in-game death, he angrily returns to the main menu to once again join another match and restart the rage inducing cycle. However, this small bit of anger and distaste has nothing on what he had just experienced a year prior.
Andrew Sherrod’s story is one of resilience and a testament to technological advancements. Going through treatment a er treatment for cancer, he was bedridden for a year as he battled the killer inside him. e ght was tough as he came across some complications, such as Rituximab, a medication used against types of cancer, in which he had a deadly allergic reaction to. A er switching to bone marrow transplants, his battle reached a turning point: Andrew became cancer-free and entered remission a few months later, all at the young age of 16.
Born in Redwood City, Andrew Sherrod is an ordinary, 16 year old boy. On April 5, 2023, Andrew went to get a blood test due to chest pain, the cause of which he still doesn’t know till this day (Sherrod). When test results came back, the E.R had found cancerous blood cells in the sample. His initial reaction to the worrying news was a casual, yet unenthusiastic:
Bruh” -Sherrod
Hewould later nd out the type of Cancer he had was Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). ALL is a type of blood and bone marrow cancer that mutates blood cells. is causes overproduction of lymphoblasts, white blood cells, that aren’t fully mature (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Disease and Symptoms). An overcrowding of lymphoblasts leaves no room for healthy blood cells and can lead to infection and easy bleeding (cancer). Treatments to cure this type of cancer are directed to the bone marrow where the cancer came from.
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“Damn.
Andrewhas gone through multiple treatments, but not all of them have worked. Some, in fact, had detrimental e ects on his body. When asked to rate his experiences with these treatments overall on a scale from 1-10 (10 being good and 1 being bad), he responded with a 2, explaining how he had constant headaches and muscle pains and the only good part was being on Fentanyl (Sherrod). One treatment he had brought up most prevalently is called Rituximab. Rituximab, known as Rituxan, is a prescriptive medicine used to treat types of cancer, such as ALL (RITUXAN). Upon taking the treatment, Andrew experienced feverish symptoms which he would come to nd out were due to an allergic reaction that could have killed him. When asked about Rituximab, he stated “ is was like a very alarming moment for me and my family, because what was it? I started having very feverish symptoms at the time…I didn’t really see how bad it was at the moment but it was, it was, it was pretty life threatening” (Sherrod). Another treatment Andrew mentioned was called Vincristine, a chemotherapy medication that is used to treat types of cancer by stopping cancerous cells from reproducing (NIM Vinchristine). ough the reaction wasn’t as severe as Rituximab, Andrew did experience some complications. He recounts his time with Vincristine, describing how it caused neuropathy in hands and feet (Sherrod). is inhibited his movement greatly, though he couldn’t really move all too much in the rst place.
During the rst few months, he was doing ne as he was still able to live his life like normal, playing on his old Xbox he was allowed to have. ey even provided a free Elite series controller and a pair of Nike Air Forces’. Little did he know, He would have to get used to his hospital bed, since he would spend the
of the year in it. When asked about his stay, he said,
“It was awful. I got really bad back pain from it. My muscles atrophied, and it took me a while to recuperate” -Sherrod rest
A er sharing, he summed it up: “I Broke my ass”, a nice sign that he felt pretty good and taking remission very well as if recounting a funny war story.
When these treatments didn’t work, Andrew’s family decided to switch to Bone Marrow and Stem Cell transplants, a decision that would prove crucial to his survival. At this point, Andrew had been radiated from multiple chemotherapies and his body’s immune system was extremely weak. Stem Cell and Bone Marrow transplants, usually requiring a doner, has the patient’s cancerous blood ushed out and cycled with the donor’s blood. ese transplants are e ective at treating cancer as the Stem Cells cycling through grow into new, non-cancerous blood cell types. the doner’s white blood cells attack the cancerous ones, increasing the chance of the treatment being successful (NIM). Turns out, Bone Marrow transplants were the way to go, as Andrew was able to beat the cancer late 2023, around December, and is in remission.
Looking back on his experiences, he mentions many times that he didn’t know the severity of it all. When you spend your time in a hospital bed, su ering from treatments that might kill you, you can’t really blame him for not knowing can you?
Recently, Andrew’s and his family moved from their home in San Jose to an apartment complex right here in Sunnyvale, next to the El Camino Health Hospital. “It’s very nice. e scenery. It’s very. It’s very beautiful. And I’m next to a computer store, which is nice.” He remarks. Cancer, like the ATGMs in-game, are deadly, o en come out of nowhere, and getting it can leave you with a sense of helplessness on whether or not you will survive. Whereas Andrew wasn’t able to dodge the missile in-game, with the right treatments, he was able to dodge it.
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