 Angel
M.
Diagnosis: Osteosarcoma in the leg, which had metastasized
to the shoulder and lung, December 1996
Treatment: Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation
When I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma it wasn't under the best of circumstances.
I had done about three months of a year-and-a-half jail sentence. They took
an X-ray in the jail but couldn't say it was a tumor. So they sent me to a
hospital to get a more educated answer. The doctor there told me it was a
tumor and they had to do a biopsy. I signed the papers to give them permission
to do the biopsy. The next day they sent me back to jail and about 10 days
later I was brought to Mass. General and told I had cancer and needed to start
chemotherapy very soon. Then I was placed on house arrest and after a couple
of chemo sessions they did surgery on my leg. I'd had pain and swelling in
my leg. There was a tumor. It was osteocarcinoma, which is a solid tumor.
I had an allograft done on my leg. They took five inches of my tibia and put
in another person's tibia and they put in a plate with screws.
At the same time I had a tumor in my shoulder. It was the same cancer as the
one in my leg. They killed it with radiation and chemotherapy. I also had
another tumor, in my lung. They removed it surgically before the radiation.
My mother's mother had breast cancer, and an aunt had cancer, too. I only
had the three tumors, lucky me. I don't think I feel sorry for myself. I've
been mad. Why shouldn't I be? I talk about it, not to everybody but to my
psychiatrist. I know a lot of people with cancer. My tumor was really responsive
to chemotherapy. But chemo was hard. I wanted to quit. I wanted to die it
was so bad. The thought was, "Why should I suffer with chemo if I'm going
to die anyway?" I'd pick myself up and say, "You can do it."
Some days you feel good, some days you don't. The days you feel good you've
got to push yourself. Chemo makes you feel weak. I forget a couple of things.
I guess I've forgotten a lot of things, not important things.
The last year went so fast. I think about how long I am going to live. I really
don't expect to live long. I'll probably go sooner than most people my age.
The chemo probably weakened my heart. I've been losing a lot of sleep lately.
I've been really scared that it will come back. I don't know if I could go
through chemo again. I feel if it came back it might keep coming back.
I didn't mind being bald. Radiation wasn't painful. I'm one of nine children,
six boys and three girls. I'm the third from the top and the oldest boy. They
don't like talking about my cancer. They know I'm doing better now. They didn't
show me that they were worried. If they showed me that they were worried,
I would get more worried. I don't like talking about cancer with certain people.
I feel more comfortable talking to people I'm not related to. If I talked
to my family about it, I'd probably break down and cry. I used to smoke marijuana
but I didn't do any other drugs. I sometimes smoked pot while I was having
chemotherapy. It stopped the nausea a great deal. I know because sometimes
I wouldn't smoke and I'd vomit.
Having cancer changed my view of life about what I want to do and what I'm
going to do for the rest of my life. I hope to go to Northern Essex Community
College in May. I don't know what I want to study but I don't want to do what
I had been doing before. I got my GED in 1995. I'm trying to study. I'm working
on some math, trying to get in shape. Right now all I've got is time.
I haven't been in school since 1995 so it's been a while. I watch a lot of
TV. I watch the educational TV. There's a lot of new discoveries about cancer
and I want to keep in touch. I've been thinking about doing nursing since
I know so much about it now. I want to keep myself busy. I want to move out
of my neighborhood as soon as I'm off house arrest. I live with my mother
and grandmother and five brothers and one little sister, but I want to move
away, even from them. It would be like starting over again.
I'm not really religious. I did buy this Jesus medal to thank God for surviving.
I bought it because my mother said it's good to have a sign. My mother is
super religious. I'm kind of religious in a way but I'm not too religious.
When I was really depressed I would pray. I don't usually pray but when this
happened I prayed more. Sometimes I didn't believe in God. People told me
God probably saw me going down the wrong way. Hey, He didn't have to choose
something of this magnitude to bring me back! But God works in mysterious
ways. I'm still scared. In the beginning I thought I would die. When I'm feeling
pain - and that's pretty often - I worry about dying. The doctors say worrying
is normal. The pain in my leg is probably from fluid build-up.
I've got a lot of friends on this floor of the hospital. They were very nice
to me. There was always somebody in the hospital I could talk with. Because
I had come from jail and they saw me coming with the sheriff, I thought they
probably wouldn't care about me. But they treated me like a normal person.
I've got a new girl friend. I would say lately I haven't been too happy a
person. The only thing that makes me happy is having a girl friend, someone
to love me, someone to talk with. I know my family loves me but that's normal,
expected. I use a wheelchair in the hospital because I have so much distance
to cover. But usually I use crutches, which I hope aren't forever. I don't
really get tired. I eat well. I take lots of vitamins. I took shark cartilage
and cat's claw and herbal medicine. Friends of the family told my mother about
those things. My mother spent a lot of money. It might have helped me, but
who knows.
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