Demonstrate in Denim

Unfortunately, cancer is something that everyone is affected by at some point in his or her life. My story starts when I was 9.  My family had just been through a hard year. My cousin had died in February; I was diagnosed with epilepsy that March. My sister, 7 at the time, was just old enough to understand everything that was going on, but not old enough to understand the seriousness of it.  We had just moved schools in order to accommodate my medical needs when my sister got sick. She started to get stomach aches every day to the point where she wouldn’t go to school. This started to happen regularly so we wondered if she was faking the stomachaches. I know it sounds silly, but we really didn’t think anything was wrong with her. Just to make sure, my parents took her to the doctor.   There was something wrong with her. They found something.  A tumor the size of a tennis ball was on her left side encapsulating her adrenal gland just above her kidney; it was cancerous. When I heard the news I broke down, I could handle everything else but not this. My baby sister couldn’t have cancer; she was too young. Too young.  My sister, through everything, was herself, just her normal, strong self. She went into surgery a few weeks later; luckily, it all went well. The cancer was contained within the tumor. I remember going to visit her and not seeing my sister, only someone sick. There were tubes all over her body, needles all over her arms, and she couldn’t smile. All she could eat for the days following the surgery was ice chips (which she eats all the time now) and apple juice (which she doesn’t like at all now). By the time she got out of the hospital, it was my birthday and that was the best birthday present I could ever ask for.  Because the tumor was cancerous she had to go back to BC Children’s Hospital for the next five years to have regular checkups to make sure that the cancer did not return. Fortunately, she was given the all clear at her last appointment right before our family moved over to Brentwood in 2012.   We can’t thank BC Children’s Hospital enough for what they did to help my family and what they do to help so many other families that are going through similar situations.  Jeans Day is an easy and fun way to support BC Children’s hospital in helping families like mine. I hope to see you all wearing jeans this Jeans Day, Thursday, April 30. Mitali P, Mackenzie ‘16