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.

China Forced Abortion

I read an article in Glamour magazine today that shocked me, it was about women being forced to have abortions in China.  I have heard of the "one child policy" in China, but I thought that I had heard that they had changed that law, I was wrong.  The article talked about how they still can only have one child, and that if they want more than one child they have to pay for the right to have a second child, and even if they do pay for the second child, its not a guarentee that they can have that second child. 

The article included a story about a women whose husband and her scraped together enough money to have the right to have a second child.  Then her world came crashing down when eight months into the pregnancy she had to get an abortion because of a big crackdown on the "one child policy".  She also said that after she was injected, she could feel her child struggle to stay alive, and she felt it die.  She's not alone, it was said that there are thirteen million abortions in China yearly, that is up 44% since 2003.
It is unlike the U.S. abortions, because abortions taking place in China can take place at any time in the prengancy, even at nine months, where as in the U.S. you can't be more than fourteen weeks in some states and twenty-four weeks in others, according to wiki.answers.com. 

There is something we can do to help the women in China, if you go to allgirlsallowed.com ad sign a petition to President Obama and Congress.  I feel really bad for the women in China, but I feel even worse for the babies, because they don't have a voice in the situation, so let's help give them a voice.

Labor Day Excitment

Marisa

This Labor Day weekend was one of my most exciting weekends I’ve been a part of in a long time. The weekend started out going to work Friday morning, I started my day at 3:30 AM. After getting ready at home I hopped in my car and drove forty-five minutes to work. After about nine hours, I finally got to go home. I had to leave early to because I was planning on meeting my cousin Dylan’s girlfriend, to visit his sister Marisa’s grave site. So as soon as I got into the car I called her and was shocked to find out that her soccer practice was moved from four to three. That gave me time to pack my clothes for this long weekend away, and do some quick reading before we left. Then Saturday came.

On this particular Saturday, my boyfriend and I were going to lead his family’s fleet of cars up to a wedding in Eau Claire. The fleet of cars that ended up following us turned out to be only three cars, but originally they had discussed a group of five to seven cars, and yes that is after carpooling. Since I was in the lead car, I was given the title of co-captain. My duties were to get us to Eau Claire without any “detours”, also known as getting lost. So with MapQuest directions in hand we headed out of Caledonia and on to Eau Claire. After getting us to Eau Claire and enjoying the wedding it was time for “The Great Minnesota Get Together”.

The Minnesota State Fair, the home of deep fried food, and everything you could ever imagine on a stick. While at the state fair, we ate a lot, but not as much as Mike, my boyfriend, and I wanted to. We also saw the biggest pig there, and saw a parade. The parade was fun, there were so many things that I have never seen up close before, but always have wanted to, like people walking on stilts. We also got a bucket of chocolate chip cookies. We had to eat a dozen of them to even get the cover on the top of the cookies. After the fair, we were on our way to visit my grandparents in Lake City. My family was invited to come up and go fishing. So we stopped by just in time for Mike to make it on the second fishing trip. Then we were on our way home.

Biggest Pig

On Monday, Mike and I were invited to go golfing with my family, and my brother’s girlfriend’s parents. Her family doesn’t golf at all, it was very interesting, and fun. After working up an appetite, we all went out to eat. The meal was good, but we had more things to do that day, my mom and I headed out to my grandma’s. For about three hours we just sat there and talked, which is the best thing in the world. Then Mike must have finished his second round of golf, with my dad, so he came out and told me that his sister had her baby. So we left my grandma’s to go see her baby, which of course is adorable.

That was my weekend; I hope that it didn’t bore you. It was more interesting if you were there, I couldn’t tell you everything that happened, and I probably skipped over a ton of fun activities. So thank you for reading this. I hope all of you had a fun and exciting Labor Day weekend as well.

About Me

Squirt

Auto

My name is Sarah Eppen.  I grew up in the small town of Caledonia, Minnesota.  I enjoy being with my family, they are the people that are with you through everything.  I have a cat named Auto, my boyfriend and I adopted him after we found him under the hood of a car. He had been there for at least a week.  I also love my parents dog, Squirt.  She is a Jack Russel and Fox Terrier mix.  The pictures you see are Squirt and Auto.