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Jolene

Everyone has a cancer cell in them. Whether or not it comes out or becomes abnormal is totally up to how your body functions and stuff. So like it was just one cell in my body that was like, “Hey, I'm going to be a retard and just go around inside my body and just like mess it all up.” So it was one abnormal cell that made my whole body bad. Every cell in my body was leukemia … was leukemic. When they diagnosed, me my body was a hundred percent leukemic.

I was diagnosed three weeks before they diagnosed me with leukemia, because I had bronchitis and pneumonia. Like I was really sick. Like I had a cold, then had that. But three weeks prior to them diagnosing me I didn’t have it, ’cause I have acute myelogenous leukemia. And acute’s a fast rapid cell developing type of leukemia, where it takes over your body like really, really quick. As in like if you get a chronic form of leukemia it goes really slow and takes a like over a year’s process. But three weeks before they diagnosed me I didn’t even have it at all. And I got checked out; I got my blood drawn and everything. And they’re like “No, she just has this”, but then they diagnosed me and my body was a hundred percent leukemic.

And I had every disease other than the Asian flu. Like I had everything, and my body just was not fighting off anything. And it would not heal any of my bruises, or cuts or my peeling of my lip. And I was losing weight too, and was having my period and all and having all that excessive bleeding and stuff. But I just wasn’t clotting blood, so like I was really pale and I was just horrible. So, the day they diagnosed me they actually called my whole family down, ’cause they’re like “She’s not gonna make it to the morning.”

‘Cause they had no idea, AML, acute myolognis leukemia only shows up in ages over sixty. And so for me to get it when I was thirteen, it was like “Hello, I don’t think …” you know. They had to keep checking it to make sure. “It is the type of leukemia she has. This is what she has,” because it’s such a rare form of it. And for me to get it at like such an age, they’re like “Wow, this is really weird.”

My body didn’t totally kill me but it brought me as close to death as you can come. And I remember the first night, they kept telling me to go to sleep, but something told me if I went to sleep that I wasn’t gonna wake back up. So I would lay there and then, I was in a white room so there was like white lights on the top; like the room I was actually in. So like they just kept saying “Go to sleep. Go to sleep,” you know. “You’ll be better when you wake up.” and I’m just like I can’t go to sleep. I couldn’t go to sleep. Don’t go to sleep. Don’t go to sleep. Don’t go to sleep. Because if you do … I just had this feeling I wasn’t gonna wake back up.

And I was so afraid of that because I didn’t want to leave anybody. Everyone was being strong for me because they didn't want to like get down because they knew I'd get down. So I had to be strong for them. So if you go into this situation, like I didn't think that I was going to live. Like there was a lot of times that I was just like, you know, I wish they would just kill me. Because the pain was so horrific. Like it was just awful. It was just awful, awful pain. And it sucked, and I would never wish upon anyone to have the pain that I went through.

Like no one would understand it unless you have someone that goes through it, or has cancer, or you actually get it yourself. It's such a hard thing to try and explain to people to have them like kind of feel. Like they can hear it, and they can listen to it ,and understand it, or try to understand it. But to actually feel how much it hurts, it's just so hard to explain.

I was in the hospital for six months, so that bill was like horrendous. My mom was actually married to a guy named Chris, which was my step dad and his insurance paid for all my stuff. Like it maxxes out at like a million or whatever, and we maxxed out my insurance card, ‘cause, I mean the bills are so incredible. My dad’s still paying bills now and I’m four years out. He’s still paying them ‘cause like it’s hard for me to get insurance and stuff ‘cause I’m like an ongoing thing.

I’m four years out and five years they’ll consider me cured, and I haven’t had a relapse or grafter’s host disease. I got a bone marrow transplant from my brother, Steven. So, with that whole thing, actually I had my bone marrow transplant on March 3rd of '98, so that's like my second birthday. So I'm really … my insides … I'm really only four years old. Like I'm a four year old in an 18 year old body, I guess you could say. So they actually harvested my brother's bone marrow that day and then they gave that to me. So my brother is the only … like the one, and only … reason why I'm here right now … why I'm still alive.

Jolene’s heart and plans