Every year, millions of people around the world hear the life – changing words: “You have cancer.” Whether it’s you, a family member, or a friend, no one wants to hear those words. The word cancer has such a definitive unpleasant meaning. But have you ever thought about being the change? Being an oncologist has always been one of my biggest dreams, to be able to create the change.
When I was little, my Mimi would always donate money to a hospital called St. Jude’s. St. Jude’s is a hospital for sick children, with mostly cancer who went to be treated, regardless of race, or the ability to pay. This perfectly describes the type of person Mimi was. Mimi always reminded me as a child how lucky I was. She would do this by telling me about the children in St. Jude’s, and how they were children just like me, who had aspirations to do big things, but because they were sick, they were not able to.
Because I had this lesson when I was younger, as I got older people started to ask me what I wanted to be when I grow up.
My answer would always be, “I want to help people with cancer.” At age 8 or 9, I finally looked up the proper term for this job, and saw the word, “Oncologist.”
The response that I would always get was, “wow that seems really sad.” As people said this to me, I never thought of this job as sad. I saw this job as rewarding, and fulfilling to be able to help people and make a difference. I wanted to be the person for people to count on, so I could help save their life. But apparently not all oncologists think this way.
On August 19th, 2025 my world flipped upside down. As I was driving home with my sister, the day after I got my permit, I arrived home to my mom waiting at the door crying. At this point I knew something was immediately wrong. Two days prior, Mimi was supposed to go into surgery to remove a small mass on her lung, but was not able to have this procedure due to complications with her surgeon. But we were told this was not a big deal, as the procedure was not urgent. As soon as we saw my mom at the door crying, we knew something had happened with Mimi.
Although most of this was a blur, I can remember my sister continuously saying, “No no no. What happened?” As soon as we walked into the house, my sister and I were immediately in tears. Could this really be real?
My mom walked us over to the couch and immediately started explaining. She said, “Mimi is in the hospital. She’s had a few seizures.” Previously about an hour before, my mom had been on the phone with Mimi.
She said, “While I was on the phone with her I could tell she wasn’t right. She was getting confused about what were were talking about, and kept stopping mid sentence. I knew something wasn’t right, so I called Poppy who was out running errands, and told him he needed to go home and check on her. Once he immediately got home, she was blankly staring at the TV, and would not respond with any words to Poppy. He got her up and into the car, and immediately rushed her to the hospital, where she then had another seizure.”
As I was hearing these words, so much was going through my head. Is she going to be okay? When are we going to see her, since they live in Florida? I couldn’t even think to imagine a world without her.
My mom then said, “I’m looking at flights to go down there tomorrow, which means you guys will be alone.” Unfortunately it was only the third day of volleyball preseason, so I was not able to go with her.
Fast forward a few days, and my aunt and mom are in Florida, when the devastating words came, “You have brain cancer.” But not only was this cancer, it was brain cancer. While this heartbreaking news was delivered, I knew that it was going to be okay. If I had ever learned anything from Mimi, it was to never give up, and I knew she wouldn’t.
My mom and aunt, seemed to be very hopeful, as her oncologist was hopeful as well. Mimi underwent a brain surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, but nothing would work. After four days into radiation, she then broke her femur when moving from her wheelchair to the radiation table, due to a radiology technician dropping her.
After Mimi had surgery to repair her femur, although her surgeon told us that the bone was healthy and cancer free and all of her imaging looked good, many of her doctors blamed the broken bone on her cancer spreading. This began the loss of hope her oncologist had. After she had this second injury, her oncologist’s perspective completely changed, and it was for the worse. Mimi sat in a hospital bed for two weeks, despite my family trying to advocate for someone to help her start moving, before her oncologist came to talk to us in person. I remember listening to him talk to us about her treatment plan, and you could just hear in his voice, the loss of hope.
He told us, “At this point there is no point in continuing her treatment she can’t even stand up or walk.” From this moment I knew this was not the kind of doctor that Mimi had always taught me to be like. I thought to myself, what if this was his family? Would he just give up on them like this? After I had this experience with this oncologist, my desire to help make a change grew even bigger, especially because the person that made most inspired me was the one hurting. The last time I was able to visit Mimi was October 27, 2025. I didn’t know that it was the last time I was going to see her, but I am grateful that I got to spend the time with her that I did.
On November 11, 2025 heaven gained another set of wings, but these ones were extra special. Mimi was the kindest and purest soul, who would always put a smile on your face. Mimi was the person I looked up to my entire life, and if I could become an oncologist one day, I would greatly do it in her honor. When Mimi passed, instead of excepting flowers, or donations, we asked that people donated in her honor to St. Jude’s because that is exactly what she would’ve wanted. Mimi never let me doubt myself while chasing any of my dreams. While I am currently chasing this dream of becoming an oncologist, I always feel her presence carry along with me, especially while I try to let children do big things like I did.