In my first fifteen years on the planet of earth, my family and I have endured many hardships due to the diagnosis and contractions of terminal and non-terminal illnesses. In this essay three topics will be discussed and will also be explained in detail as to how these personal experiences have given me the outlook of a competitor in life. First off the issue of my late grandmother's battle with ovarian cancer and now my grandfather is also battling with cancer. In 1995 my father had a massive blockage of the lower left interior descending artery also known as a heart attack.
To begin this essay in 1992 my grandmother on my father's side of the family was diagnosed with cancer of the ovaries. At that time the probability of a full recovery from an operation was only 20% and she was given six months to live. After many operations and years of chemotherapy she lost her fight to the cancer after seven years. In that time she made progress in the medical world by becoming the first person to take Taxol. This happened in1993 she became the first person in the state of Missouri to take the cancer fighting drug which at that time was still experimental and she had to travel to the nation's capital and get through a lot of political red tape to get approved to take the drug. My grandmother went through extensive and painful operations yet she always had a good and positive attitude towards the world and towards life. This showed me that you should never give up hope on a miracle. .
In 1995 when my father had his heart attack his brain was said to have been without oxygen for somewhere between 20-45 minutes, in other words he was completely 100% brain dead for that long. After 9 days in a very deep vegetative state or an extremely deep coma a doctor's journal said "after 9 days in a deep coma Mr. Lamb has miraculously awoken." In a case as serious as my dads only 2% of people who suffer that much of a prolonged oxygen lapse to the brain regain consciousness and even less then that regain the ability to walk talk and function in normal society.