I swear they say you'll never forget the day you were diagnosed, and they are right I never will. It feels like as if it was yesterday. It was on a tuesday at college and I just wasn't feeling right something was really wrong. After I left the class I went to go babysit for my moms boss, well as I was driving there I was really getting sick so I figured I would stop off and get a milksake cause cold drinks always help me feel better well it didn't go as I planned. When I got the house the father said the toddler was sleeping and that he should be up in an hour or so, I was like ok. Well he then left and I went and sat on the couch watching some t.v. and all of sudden the kid started to cry and as I went to walk up the stairs I got severly light headed and dizzy and got extremely sick to my stomach on top of that I could barely walk on my right left it my knee was hurting me severly. So so as I approached the kids room I almost blacked out and got sick to my stomach so I ran to the bathroom and sat on the floor near the toliet. Then I decided to go the sick to drink some cold water which helped out very much. Right then in there I was like I can not watch this kid, so I called the dad and said you need to come home something is severly wrong with me. When he arrived home he was concerend about me and asked did I need a ride home instead of me driving, I said that I would be fine I am going to go to my moms since she lived only 10 mintues away from where I was babysitting.

Well I called my mom to let her know I was going to be at her house, and that I wasn't feeling to well. When I got to her house I went straight up to her room and passed out! My mom had then come home and woke me up and felt my head and said I was burning up. We took my tempature and it was 102.5 we immediately paged the doctor. We paged too doctors my allergist and my regular physical, well we only got one call back and that was from my allergist. She told me to come in on thursday at 11:30, she was not opened wednesday so I could not go in the next day. She perscribed an antiobotic until I saw her to bring down my fever. Well me and my finace went in on thursday to see her, we were there before she was and when she came in I was seen right away.

When I went into see I told her everything that was going on, I had a rash from head to toe, I had lumps all along my jaw line behind my ears in my head, my teeth hurt to brush or eat, my left wrist hurt to use, my right knee hurt to walk on, and I was severly tired. As I told her all of this she hmmm. Then she said I want you to go right now and take these blood test. So we left her office and I went and got the blood test. The test had to be done in both arms two tubes taken from one arm and two tubes taken from the other arm and this was about 12:00pm on the January 13th. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to hear 4 hours later at my home over the phone from my allergist. When my cell phone started to ring and the her number came up I started to freak out I was ok this is not good. As I answered I said hello and she said Jessica I don't know how to tell you this but you have Leukemia and I was like I have what???? She repeated again and said she had some things she need to discuss with me and I said I can't talk to her right now, but that I would call her back. After I got off the phone I looked at my fiance and said I have cancer and broke down and started to cry. I couldn't believe anything I had ever heard about Leukemia was that you died, so I figured at the age of 19 my life was over. I just started to live! I told my finace we have to go see my grandma we need to leave now. I said I need you to drive I can't

We got into the car and left for my grandmas work as we arrived only 4 blocks down from where we lived. As I got out of the car I had to pull my finace out of the car because he was so upset he couldn't get out of the car. As we walked in I couldn't keep my composer. I started to cry again and I said grandma I have Leukemia I have cancer. Now by this time we had already dealt with my mother and breast cancer but it was light and not too bad she only had 4 chemo treatment, and then 6 months earlier my grandpa just covered from prostate cancer, he just need surgery thank the lord. But I, I was the worst. As I looked at her I said can you call my allergist I can't talk to her right now I am to upset. My grandma called my allegist and she explained that an oncologist would be calling me not just any oncologist a pedatric oncologist. I was going to be going into the children's hospital because I was under the age of 21. So now we had to wait for this oncologist to call us. My grandma got off of work at 5 and lived 3 blocks down from work as we left and drove to her house I got a call from the oncologist saying that they were getting a bed ready for me in the hosptial and that I was coming in that night and that I would have some test done. He also said that they will be calling me when the room is ready. Until they we sat at my grandparents house until we go that call. We told my grandpa what was going on and no one could eat. The look on everyone's faces was so painful.

As we sat and wait we called my mother and said don't call anyone else until we know for sure what type of cancer your daughter has. But of course my mother had to call my aunt and how we knew about this was when she pulled into the driveway and said to me humorsly what the hell Jessica don't you get enough attention and we all started to laugh. Wow we need the laugh. Then my parents pulled up and all of sat there trying to figure what type of Leukemia I wanted to have so I could survive this. We were looking in every health book.

Well at 8:00pm I finally got the call to go into the hospital and all of us went to the children's hospital together. When I got there my room had a crib in it because they thought that I was 19months old and not 19 years old so we took pictures of it until they got me a bed and we laughed about it. We all had to laugh at something. When I received my bed I sat on it and all of us waited until the doctor came in. No one wanted to leave until they knew what was going to happen with me. When the doctors came in they said they were going to start the chemo that night and 12 hours later I was going to have a bone marrow and a spinal tap I was like ok sounds scary. But it had to be done in order to determine what type I had and if it was in my head and spine.The doctor continued to fill us in on how the treatment was going to go I was going to have 8 months of heavey induce chemotherapy and 1 1/2 of maintence. The also said there would be a protocol I would be following as well. I had a few questions of my own and of course they were am I going to lose my hair, will I be able to have kids and can I still go to school. They said I will lose my hair, I should be able to still have kids, and I should stop going to school because the chemo was going to bring me down.

After they explained everything they left and my family eventually left around 11:00pm. But were there bright and early the next day Including my fiance who stayed the night in the hospital with and never left my side. Early that moring which was Friday January 14, 2005 the oncologist and nurses came in and said we are hear to take you to get your bone marrow done and spinal tap and I was like oh goody. Well after the test were completed the oncologist came later that day with the results and said I had Acute Lymphocitic Leukemia and that my spinal tap came back inconclusive so that meant I had to have another one to determine if it was in my spine or head. This also meant that if I would have to have raditaion done to my head and it also meant I had to eat so I was practically going on 24 hours of no food! Later on it turned out I did have to have the radition.It was a long hall I also had to have surgery to have a port put in so I could get my chemo and they could have my blood. I got to go come that sunday but I had to be in the clinci monday morning at 8:00am for chemo and another spinal. I had a hard time with my spinals and bone marrow even though they gave you drugs to sort of know you out and help you forget the pain, I managed to be awake for almost all of them. Let me tell my second bone marrow I had went horribly wrong and the oncologist was going in and out of my hip a few time and was getting blood everywhere in the room. Now that one really hurt.

When I started my cheomtharpy I never thought it would bring me down as bad as it did.

I will continue this in another blog. My story is really long sorry. But I have a lot to say that happened to me