Finding Me By Deven Jackson
Imagine a perfectly healthy nine-year-old boy playing on the ground with his toys, not a care in the world. Suddenly, he can’t get up because his left leg is trembling and shaking violently. That nine-year-old boy was me, and in the following days, I would come to find out that I had had a seizure due to a malignant tumor that had grown over the sensory nerves on my brain. At the ripe old age of nine, I was rather forcefully thrust into a world that was made up of doctors, nurses, operations, medications, and the possibility of death. I was forced to come to terms with real-world everyday problems that I thought I had years of mistakes and experience to prepare me for. I had to worry about small crucial things, such as wondering if I forgot to take a pill before I left, or did I bring extra meds, what was my last white count, and was I too close to that man that coughed? I also had huge things on my heart such as mourning my friends that didn’t make it, and wondering if I would ever walk again, or talk without a stutter or lisp. When it felt like my world was falling apart and that I was going to drown in this new and almost extraterrestrial life of tubes and wires, I had to reach a point. I was around twelve years old when I had to decide whether I’d let myself succumb to the feelings of dread and sadness that had ever so slowly crept into my heart due to this unjust and cruel disease. Or would I allow myself to be the strong, passionate, and independent person that I had always wanted to be in spite of the sickness that had dominated so much of my early life?
