YOUR STORIES
Through your lens. Through your words.
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Sharing stories of your experience is a crucial part of the coping & healing process. Though we understand it is emotionally taxing, we encourage everyone to open up. It is only with love and support from others you let in that will allow you to free yourself and enable others to acknowledge their own stories to do the same.
FEATURED:
My name is Karega Walters, affectionately known as Shamari and 2017 at the age of 35, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colorectal cancer. Since, I have had over 20 rounds chemotherapy, three rounds of radiation therapy, two liver ablations, and two surgeries to stop the growth and spread of the cancer.
April of 2017 is when I began to notice blood in my stool. Two days later the blood returned so I called one of my close friends, who is a registered nurse and told her what was going on and she suggested that I go to the emergency room. I took her advice and had a colonoscopy at Montefiore Hospital was discharged the next day.
Several days later, I received a call from the doctor asking me to come into his office to discuss the results. He disclosed that there was an indication of cancer in my colon and further diagnostic exams to include a PET scan and CT scan to confirm his original diagnosis.
In May of 2017, stage 4 cancer of the colon that had metastasized to my liver was confirmed. My option at that time was to have surgery followed by chemotherapy. At this point I wasn’t afraid or worried. When I told my family and close friends they were devastated, but I told them not to worry and that I will be fine. I was determined to get this thing out of my body and go on with my life. In June of 2017 I underwent my first surgery. It was then I had both a part of my colon and liver removed followed by six months of chemotherapy. I thought my journey had ended.
“A PIECE OF YOU”
Written By: Nina PhaM
In Honor of: Katie Pham
Dear ma,
A week ago Scooter Braun asked me if I would want to get a tattoo with someone's DNA in it. He was considering investing in a technology that could do so and wondered what my thoughts were since he saw the black rose tattoo on my shoulder.
He had no idea that that tattoo was for you, though I did tell him eventually since I found it so ironic that the ink that caught his eye to ask this question was actually for someone who has passed, making the concept of having a piece of that someone ingrained in you instinctively more interesting.
Only for a brief moment though. It took me but a few seconds to tell him my answer.
No.
“THIS MAY HELP YOU”
Written by: Nanakwame Adjei-Brenyah
In honor of: Dennis Adjei-Brenyah
"Your father is radioactive" the doctor will say. This will be after the P.E.T scan. “So don’t let him around old people or babies.” It will seem like a joke. He is an old person. You’ll feel like a baby.
“Okay,” you’ll say.
Lymphoma, in and of itself, will not make either you or your father better people. Use “lymphoma.” That other word is too… too something you can’t quite articulate. The one you’ll use, lymphoma, is more clinical. And by your logic, something more likely to pass.
When the panic comes you’ll try to remember: “Long game, it’s a marathon.” Wisdom you’ll get from a friend who watched their father taken by the same.
“Mother to Son”
WRITTEN BY: CECIL WHITE III & ELIZABETH PAIGE WHITE
IN HONOR OF: DEBRA SAUNDERS-WHITE
Mom,
We dedicate the poem below to you; we know it was your favorite. Thank you for teaching us life’s most important lessons and for your spirit, which lives on through all of us.
Mother to Son
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.