My Experience with Leukemia
By Alena Chauntee

As a child growing up cancer wasn’t talked about. I had never really thought about or heard about death. My grandparents were older, they married at the age of 25 and adopted my father after numerous attempts at trying to have a baby naturally.

My father, Lonnie, was brought home when he was a couple days old. He was a happy and healthy baby boy. At the age of four my father came down with polio. It was very painful for him, he always had to wear braces and he had to have special shoes made.

All the visits to the doctor for his polio made my father dislike doctors a great deal. He would refuse to go even when he was really sick. Sometimes we could convince him to go and he would albeit reluctantly. My parents divorced when I was four years old and my brother was two.

My father eventially remarried a nice lady named Genie, and we were able to see my father a lot which was nice. My grandparents helped get him a new place, it was really fancy and I liked it a lot. Things didn’t work out between Genie and my father though and they were only married for about two years.

Then dad met Francis. He really loved her. She had three children of her own and was raising three of her sister’s children. I enjoyed going over there. We had a built in family of more brothers and sisters. It was awesome. My father always treated me and my brother the same as always.

We liked going over there and spending the night. We would play games and I got to help cook. I loved cooking especially desserts. I still do to this day. One evening my father looked really tired. I went to sit on his lap and asked what was wrong.

He said he hadn’t been feeling well. I asked, “Did you go to the doctor? He answered, ”Yes, He gave me these pills.” He shook the container. I ran to get him a glass of water and watched him take his pills. It made me happy to know he was trying to get better.

My brother’s birthday was coming up and we were going to celebrate with my father. My mom’s parents drove us out there. My father wasn’t feeling well and was lying on the couch. He said he would be by to pick us up later on. That was the last time I saw my father alive.

I called my Grandma and asked if she heard from my father. She said no and that she would call him. We had been waiting to eat with our father. We were very hungry so my mom made us a sandwich to share.

A while later we received a call stating that our father was rushed to the hospital and he had leukemia. My grandmother was crying on the phone and I could barely understand her. I found out later on that grandparents had gone over to my dad's planning to take him to come get me and my brother. They got him off the couch and he went to go get cleaned up for our evening out. He nicked himself shaving and his blood was pink.

My grandparents frantically rushed him to the emergency room where they said he could live up to two years. My brother, myself and my mother were crying very hard. I was only eleven and my brother just turned nine. I didn’t know what cancer was. I didn’t know that my father would really die.

We finally were able to speak to my father. I cryed the whole time I was talking to him. I begged to see him, and he asked my mother to bring us up. He also said that he had something important to tell us. My mother had no money for the bus. She had spent it all on my brother’s birthday and it was the end of the month.

We had to try to find a ride up there. My mother tried her parents, but her mother told her that there were no visitors allowed. She also tried to reach my father’s parents, but she had no luck there. They were building a new house and the was not phone installed yet.

He kept calling all week, begging to see us. We cried so hard each time he called. I was so sad and worried. On Saturday, a week later, my mother was talking to someone on the phone. She started crying hysterically and called us over to her. She sat us down on her lap and said that our father had just died. I couldn’t believe it. My father was only thirtyone years old, how could he be dead? I was sure she was kidding, I had just spoken to him the night before. She said, "He died this morning."

I was very distraught and couldn’t be consoled. I tried to hold on to my brother while he cried. I ran and grabbed my doll and curled up on the couch and cried my eyes out.

A couple days later, we went to the funeral home to see my father. His parents came and picked us up. We all were crying on the way there. My grandma said the shirt my father was wearing was covered in her tears. She couldn’t stop crying while ironing his shirt.

When we arrived, we walk into this room and I saw my father lying in this beautiful casket. I went up and touched his face. My family gasped. I turned around and said, "He’s cold," he looked like he was sleeping. He didn’t look dead to me. He wasn’t moving and didn’t wake up.

We attended the funeral, all of our family and friends were there. I looked around and realized how many people loved my father too. I started crying harder and grasped my grandma’s arm.

It had finally sunk in that he was really dead when we went to the graveside service. After the funeral we went down the line and hugged people. I remember hearing someone say my father looked great in the hospital. I looked at my grandma and wondered if that was true.

Indeed, I found out, almost everyone at the funeral had seen my father in the hospital. It was Francis who didn’t want us there. She convinced my mother’s mom to lie to us. So we all believed we couldn’t see my father. We did not get to see him or find what he wanted to tell us. I was very angry about that.

The sad thing is my father died in 1979 and they are no closer to a cure now than they were then. So I tend to freak out when anyone mentions cancer around me. I automatically think you will die right away. I have found out that it’s not necessarily true. It depends on the kind of cancer and how far spread it is. So it is a comfort to me that some cancers are curable.

I know my father watches over me. I know he is proud of the woman and mother I have become. I think of him often. I look forward to the day when no child ever has to lose a parent the way that my brother and I did, to the day when every cancer is curable.