Jared’s Essay

Hey. Turn around. Guess who it is? IT’S THE WORLD. I just thought I’d drop in and have a little chat. You know, let you in on a few things before they spring up on you. So pull up a chair and take a seat. No, really, you’re gonna want to sit down for this.

Things are going pretty well, aren’t they? I know all those trips you took this summer were a blast. Maine with your best friends and the Grand Canyon with your family…you really know how to have a good time. And finishing high school…it really doesn’t get much sweeter than that. Now you’ve just gotten back from orientation in Austin, and I bet you can’t wait for college to start. The football games, the classes, the new friends…well, uh, yeah…about that. I mean don’t get me wrong; you should be beyond excited about all that. But you might want to take a second and rethink that.

See, here’s the deal. I don’t really know how to put this easily, so I guess I’ll just come right out and say it: you have lymphoma. Gee, you really don’t seem too concerned about that. OK, let me put it this way: you have CANCER. Oh, there we go! That’s more of the reaction I expected! But you still don’t seem too worried about it. Why is that? Oh, you think you’ll still be able to go to school, don’t you? WRONG. You’re gonna have to put that on hold for a little while.

No, I don’t think you understand. This isn’t gonna be like going to the doctor to get a check-up. There’s a little more to it than that. This is staying at the hospital two days in a row, constantly hooked up to a chemo drip, getting no sleep at all because the stupid timers keep going off every five seconds. Plus another trip back to the hospital less than twelve hours later for another drip. And don’t forget the quick half-hour drip five days later. Think you’re finished? Nope. Rinse and repeat two weeks later, for three more cycles. And that’s just the chemo. After that there’s 14 days of radiation. That should put you finishing with treatment right around the time you should be completing your final exams. Hey, at least you won’t have to worry about those…

Alright, I can tell that hit a nerve; now you’re starting to grasp the reality of this. Not getting to move off to college when all your friends must be pretty hard. At least you’ll still have some friends here. Most of them are going to do everything they can to help you out and make this as painless as possible. The least they can do is hang out with you while you have cancer. Plus, your best friend is still in high school, so she’ll be there for you whenever you need her. Whoops, I’m sorry; did I say best friend? I meant “best friend.” It turns out that your “best friend,” the first person you’re going to tell about your diagnosis, is going to be “very busy” this whole semester. Too busy, in fact, for her best friend, even though this is when he needs her most. Funny how people will just abandon you like that. I’m going to take a second to help you out with that one: forget about her. It’s her loss. Focus on the people who are there for you; they are your true friends. A word to the wise: when this is all over, if anyone asks if you would have done anything differently, say yes. You would tell someone else first. You would choose someone else to be with you. You would choose someone else to be your best friend. But I digress…

OK, I guess I’ve laid all the depressing morbid crap on you long enough. There’s gonna be some good things that come out of this. For example, all your friends are going to buy you all those 59FIFTY hats you’ve been wanting for so long. The best part is that they’re not gonna be able to give you any crap for wearing them either, because now you can respond with, “I have to wear them; I have cancer.” That will shut them up pretty quickly. And while going bald isn’t gonna be the best look for you (put in some red contact lenses and you’ll look like Voldemort), your hair will eventually grow back softer than ever. What girl is going to be able to resist playing with it? Yeah, I thought you’d like that one. Speaking of girls, you’ll have a pretty cute nurse while you’re at the hospital…flirt with her as much as possible. Trust me, she’ll dig it. And you should definitely apply for that tutoring position at your old middle school. You’ll get the chance to help some really cool kids, and that’s an opportunity you never would have had before all this.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s not the end of the world. Yes, it’s not fair that you got cancer. Yes, you’ll miss out on the first semester of your freshman year of college. Yes, you’ll drift apart from the people you thought you were closest to. But you’ll also grow closer to some people than you ever imagined. And that will pay off later on down the road. Trust me on that one. So keep up the positive outlook, because it really is your attitude that will make or break the next few months.

Oh, and one final word of advice: order in pizza. Hospital food sucks.

About Jared

Jared’s college experience was delayed by six months because of his cancer diagnosis, but since becoming healthy he has made the most of his time at the University of Texas at Austin. He is studying religion, history and Arabic, and spends his spare time playing Frisbee golf and watching baseball. Next year, Jared will be participating in the Texas 4000 team, in which he will bike 4,600 miles from Austin, Texas to Anchorage, Alaska in order to raise money for cancer research.

When he was sick, Jared considered his fight against cancer an obstacle, not a life-changing event. Upon hearing the diagnosis, he said, his initial reaction was “okay, fix it.” He does not dwell on his past, and considers it an finished chapter in his life.

Jared entered the Andre Sobel Award essay contest partly in order to express the feelings he did have over what he had been through. “It was an opportunity to get all the thoughts that had been in my head onto paper,” he said. “It was a kind of catharsis.”