1995 My First Cousin example essay topic

Have you ever wished that you could just turn back the hands of time? Maybe there was a huge concert that you missed, or a tragic event in your life happened you wish you could have changed. I know at least everyone has had one of those years they wish they could erase. My unforgettable year started in January and ended in July. A lot went on that made me wish it never happened. January 10, 1995 my first cousin was diagnosed with leukemia.

She was flown to Memphis immediately where she was treated at St. Jude's Hospital. By checking her first tests the doctors said that she had a 50/50 chance at surviving. This tore my family apart! My grandparents who held everything together for the family had to move to Memphis and stay at the Ronald McDonald House because they were legal guardians of my cousin.

My Grandmother used to baby-sit all the grandchildren while my aunts and uncles would work and go out on the weekends. We only had one aunt who didn't Work and she refused to baby-sit. Everyone in the family was fighting because no one wanted to help each other. They would usually say that if my cousin's mother was there for her like she should be then my grandmother could be at home taking care of their kids.

All the fighting and complaining went on for about five months. My cousin was getting worse and so was the family. Then one day we were looking at the news and saw that a terrorist bomb had destroyed a federal office building in Oklahoma City; killing thousands of men, women, and children. This made my family wake up and see how foolish we had been acting. It showed us that hundreds of families had lost their loved ones, and we had all our close loved ones there with us fighting over nothing. The Oklahoma bombing showed us how we were taking each other for granted.

We never know what could happen where we might lose someone, so we agreed to take it day by day helping and loving each other in everyway we could. In June of 1995 the doctors predicted that my cousin had about six months left to live. They agreed that she could return home and receive her chemotherapy treatments at Erlanger Hospital. We were happy that she was coming home but sad about the predicament the doctors had made. When my cousin came home she was bald headed, and very skinny; she was not the same person I remembered her being. But, one thing about her that didn't change was her love for basketball.

She had been playing for the YMCA since she was four. Her favorite team was the Chicago Bulls, and of course her favorite player was Jordan. I wasn't to fund of him because I was and Orlando Magic's fan, favorite player being Penny Hardaway. She was able to see her favorite team win the championship in 1995, and Jordan receive his MVP Awards trophy before the chemotherapy blurred her vision, but not making her completely blind.

She couldn't stand light so she didn't watch too much TV after the championship. She bragged for months and months about her team. She talked so much about Jordan that I started to dislike him, because it was proven that he was better than Penny. In March of 96, she stopped going in for her chemotherapy treatments because she said that it was making her sicker than she really was.

I started to believe that she was better off not taking the treatments also. She claimed that she could see better now that her vision wasn't blurred. She regained her appetite, and she gained a couple of pounds. Her hair started to grow back, and she grew enough to make one ponytail! Her health was fine and she was getting fatter, and stronger every day. Somehow, my cousin caught a cold in the summer.

In July of 96, she caught a very bad cold causing her healthy, fat, and strong body fail. She was back in the hospital receiving chemotherapy. The treatments didn't seem to be working so the doctors suggested a bone marrow transplant. We couldn't find a donor that matched and my cousin was getting sicker and sicker.

She lost the use of her legs and had to rely on a wheelchair. Suddenly her kidneys failed and she couldn't control her bowel movements. She was in so much pain, and there was nothing I could do. My grandmother couldn't stand to see her suffer so she prayed that the lord would take her away and lead and guide us during our time of grief. The next morning on July 16, 1996, my cousin was found dead in the back bedroom of the house. She died at the age of nine.

This event changed my life because it taught me how not to take things for granted, and that it can happen to anyone (cancer). I learned how treat everyone equally, and not to stare or treat others differently because of their looks. I also learned that sometimes death is the best way out. For many months I was mad at my grandmother for the prayer she made the night before my cousin died. She asked the lord to take her away. I now realize that she was asking him to take her out of her suffering and misery and I do think it was in my cousin's best interest.