near our house there was a field
that was in full bloom of like flowers so i said let's stop and take a picture and she posed
and she was beautiful and like a week later
she had cancer
hello everybody we'll be in now in the hospital for the next couple days honestly i missed
almost a year of my life obviously when i was 10 years old i didn't understand the severity of it
i just understood i had to let go of school i gave up sports because i didn't have the strength
which was one of the hardest things because i love sports it's that sudden you know one week
she's playing softball with her friends and um the next week she's getting a port put in her chest
it's something that you never want to happen you never expect to happen
but it just happens every time that i got some disappointing news it was just a blow to the chest
i had a lot of side effects when you're going through chemotherapy one of the most common
effects is nausea i had a strict schedule that i had to attend to to be able to survive the
illness i went through six weeks of radiation to pinpoint exactly where and that's why i'm
still bold today i mean i never got my hair back because of that radiation so
when she was diagnosed it was really really hard but she never let on how hard it was
i mean it was just constant up and down up and down for the first year in those dark times
i always try to find the bright side of everything find humor in the darkness
i wish that there was a way that we could have it easier for all kids and not have to
be in extreme pain all the time or be sore or be cranky the kids who go through the cancer
they're the ultimate survivors because i know that it's not easy to stay positive
i truly believe that nationwide children's hospital is on the front line
of research for children because that's what can make a difference
she's going to deal with hair loss probably forever so cancer hair loss and then one of the
things that i've tried not to think about because i'm just happy that she's alive is whether she'll
be able to have kids or not with cancer treatment you need all the support you can get and i learned
that very early on with everybody these treatments are different but one thing stays the same
they need to get through it and they need to have the ability to get through it everyone should be
on equal ground when it comes to treatment and when it comes to even outside of treatment they
should have extra support if they need it i mean we had the best of the best and we they really
did do a good job and they took care of arya and they they didn't let things slip i will say for
the last six months i don't want to say i felt comfortable but i felt a little bit more relieved
because she's getting closer back to where she was before she was diagnosed when she rang the bell at
nationwide children's hospital when she was done with treatment that felt like a big achievement
she's come a long long way so to watch her
hit that home run it's a testament to who she is and how strong she is you