by Maggie Gamage

In November of 2007, I got to shave all the hair off my mother’s head! I was five years old. It was a fun activity that the family got to do together! Each one of the kids got a turn using the razor. She had to wear a wig or a bandana a lot of the time. Late at night I would hear my mom crying. She cried about it a lot and I never really understood why. Maybe she really liked her hair, I would think to myself. She tried to make things fun for my siblings and I but she didn’t smile as much as she used to. She would take us places and go to school activities with us. 

My family and I went to the hospital with my mom a lot. Everyone around me kept saying that everything would be ok and that I was doing so well being strong. One time I remember going to the hospital and getting a stuffed animal! It was a purple poodle! I played with it all day and I didn’t understand why everyone and my family looked so down. That day my mom had to stay at the hospital for a long time. After that we made it into the newspaper! Strong mother of 5 staying strong as she fights cancer!

I learned a long time after that, that in September of 2007, she was diagnosed with stage 4 follicular Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma(fNHL). Follicular lymphoma is cancer in the white blood cells called lymphocytes. They are what help your body fight infections. In her case, every one of her lymphocytes in her body were affected. A few days after Christmas, and 6 rounds of chemo treatment, there was no more sign of disease! She still had to go back to the hospital every 3 weeks. When I called her to ask what it was like having cancer, she told me it was like being on a train track and seeing the lights of the train coming towards her but she was unable to get off the track. She was watching death creep closer to her. She said that she was thinking about writing letters to every one of my siblings and me, in case she died, we would have something to remember her by. She thought of all the birthdays, and graduations she would miss. To this day she still cries when she talks about it. She told me she was so scared that my siblings and I would have to grow up without a mom. 

Around 80,000 people are diagnosed with fNHL every year and not as many people are as fortunate as my mother. Around 20,000 people will die from this cancer. (1) I hope that there will be more tests done to try and cure cancer. I can’t even imagine what life would be like without my mom in my life. There are so many families that are broken from loss and grief. I just want there to be more research done to to lower the rates of death from cancer causes. I hope that one day cancer will not claim anyone’s life.