Narrative

Sarah Eppen
Written Communications
Mrs. Allard
November 7, 2010
The Moment
At age thirteen what was your biggest worry? When you would get your first zit, and how to get rid of it? If the cutest boy/girl in your class would ask you to go to the dance with them? That’s what most thirteen year olds should have to worry about, but for one extraordinary young woman her life was turned upside down by three little words.
In March sometime, Marisa, my cousin, hurt her ankle playing basketball. By June her “sprained” ankle hadn’t gotten any better, in fact it had gotten worse. It got so bad in fact that she could hardly walk up and down stairs. Darlene, Marisa’s mom, took her to doctor after doctor and had a lot of x-rays taken, but they could never find anything wrong with her.
Then on July 8, 2009 Marisa woke up crying because she couldn’t get out of bed. Darlene decided that was the last straw. She took Marisa to the hospital to see Dr. Capelli, our family’s pediatric doctor. He took more x-rays and told them he would call them in the morning, to make an appointment so they could discuss the results of the x-rays. To Darlene’s surprise she got a call on their way home saying that they needed to get back to the hospital as soon as possible. So, Darlene whipped around and headed back to the hospital.
After going backed and being whisked away to a room the doctor came in, and gave them an unexpected diagnosis. When they finally got Marisa out of the hospital they called my mom, She was to get a hold of everyone, because Marisa needed as all together that night. My mom called me last; she called right before she left to go out to Darlene’s farm. When I answered the phone I could hear my mom’s voice quivering on the other end saying, “Sarah I need to talk to you, can you meet me out back of Mike’s apartment.” At that point I didn’t know what to think, and said “Of course.” Then we hung up and I ran down the stairs. I waited for what seemed like an hour, but when I finally saw her car, I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. When she got in the parking lot I ran out the door. Then she got out of her car, it stopped me dead in my tracks, and I said “Mom what’s wrong.” She answered, with tears welling up in her eyes, “Sarah, its Marisa.” Immediately my mind began to race in one hundred different directions. I thought maybe she was dead, or seriously injured. Then she said, “Its cancer.” I had never thought that she could have cancer. At that moment the littlest breeze could have knocked me over with ease.
As we piled into the car, and started our trip out to the farm, it was silent. No one knew what to say. When we got to the house, I was out of the car before my mom could put it in park. I ran right into the house, and I saw people crying that I have never seen crying in my life, like my grandma . I asked where Marisa was and ran right to her. When I got to the living room I saw her sitting on their green comfy couch, the same couch that we had so many memories on before. You could tell she was in pain and still in shock. The person with her at the time got up and said that I could be with her now. I wasted no time, I was on that couch holding her and we were crying together. It was so hard to see my “sister from another mister” in such pain and I knowing there was nothing I could do for her. As my mom made her way over to us, I got up and in that brief second realized how close our family was, and would be because of this tragedy. After spending a good half of the night at Darlene’s house we said good bye, and my mom made plans to go up with Darlene and Marisa to Rochester the next day. My mom insisted going because she didn’t want Darlene to sit up there all by herself; we all knew it was going to be a long day.
The next morning I decided last minute to go up with them, so we went and picked up Darlene and Marisa, and we were on our way. The ride up was long and quite, not much was said. As we finally reached the hospital we had started to talk, and laugh not much gets Marisa down. She was particularly excited that she got to be pushed around in a wheel chair something she took full advantage of. As we sat waiting for her to be called in and have her tests done we laughed and had a good time. It was a pretty impressive sight to see this little girl already growing up and dealing with a horrible diagnosis better than I knew I would, if I was in her shoes. After a quick lunch we went to the pediatric floor of the hospital and were escorted into a room where we were going to meet Marisa’s doctor for the rest of her chemo and radiation treatments. Her name was Dr. Arnt. When she showed us the results from the PET scan we were amazed. She started us at the feet, because that’s where her biggest spot was, then she went up her body to her pelvis, then to her spine, and then to her shoulders, all the areas where the cancer had spread. That was too much for me; it was too close to her heart. As I tried to hold back my tears so Marisa wouldn’t hear me, but it was too late we all were crying. Dr. Arnt left us in that room and said that we could stay there as long as we needed. We sat there crying for two hours. When we got settled down enough we left the room in better spirits. Darlene made her next appointment and we were off.
Our first stop was to get Marisa’s pain medicine. While Darlene was in Shopko’s pharmacy, my mom got Marisa a pillow to lay her head down on my lap, and she got out of the car to make a few phone calls. When Darlene came out of the pharmacy, we left and headed home. The ride up was different from the ride home, on the ride home we sang and laughed, we even talked about our plans for that weekend since we had a relative coming into town from Washington, it had been years since we last had visited him and a lot had changed. After a few quick stops to pick up clothes for the next day we went to my Grandma’s farm.
When we pulled up everyone was having a great time, it was the perfect thing to keep all of our minds occupied for a while. That night we had a campfire, in which everyone did everything they could to make Marisa laugh. The jokes were pointed mostly at me, because I am an easy target, and I do a lot of dumb things. My aunt Audrey was the one throwing most of the punches, but as Marisa went inside to get something to drink she made sure that I knew it was just to keep Marisa’s mind off of everything going on. I knew that our family gets through tough times by making jokes, and that it was working for Marisa. As it started to get late, Marisa and I decided we were going to bed, we told everyone good night and headed down to the tent, where we were going to sleep.
As we lay down I was shocked when she said that we had to pray first. I had slept with her many times and this was the first time she asked me to pray with her. So we prayed together, and then she asked if it was ok to pray separately for a moment. I said it was fine, so we did. When we were done praying, we rolled toward each other to say good night and as I closed my eyes I heard her say my name, so I opened them again and said, “What’s wrong Ris?” She said, “You know we were just joking out there right. We didn’t mean anything by it if it hurt you feelings.” I started to feel tears in my eyes as I said “I know Ris, it was fine. Did it help you forget things?” She said, “Yes, you do a lot of funny things.” We both laughed a little bit more, and then she went to sleep. In that moment I knew that she was the strongest little girl I knew and that she was starting to become a very amazing young lady.
Over the next year she had a lot of ups and downs and our family grew closer than ever. Marisa showed strength that a thirteen year old should never have to have, and that my family knows half of us wouldn’t have if we were in the same situation. Marisa lost her battle on July 30th, 2010. It is the hardest thing I have ever had to go through. She taught many people many things, like that you always need to be positive and have faith, and there is a reason for what’s going on even if you can’t see it.