Boy, do I have a story for you!

When I was 4, I was diagnosed with Burkitt's Lymphoma. In case you don't know, Burkitt's is generally considered to be the most aggressive kind of cancer in the world. The tumors double in size every 48 hours, and it has almost no symptoms until it has reached "Stage 4", at which point it is nearly impossible to cure and is basically a death sentence.

One day, I was on a picnic with my family. As I came over to the table to eat lunch, I tripped on a tree root, and fell face-first into the bench of the table, causing my teeth to actually go through my bottom lip.

When we arrived at the emergency room, I was given stitches. This was not done under anesthesia, and was done right in the hospital bed, so my parents were in the room. My mom noticed a large, dark bump in the back of my throat. When she asked about it, they could not determine what is was and told my parents to wait 2-3 weeks and come back if it did not go away. My Dad had other ideas......

My Dad began calling doctor's all over the state. They all had waiting lists of 4-8 weeks, but he had an "indescribable feeling" the we could not wait that long. He began calling doctors all over the East coast of the USA (I live near Washington D. C.). Eventually, he found a place that had a cancellation, and after breaking down on the phone, they decided to let us come in that saturday.

I had the lump removed and 4 days later the doctor called and basically told us: "I'm not supposed to do this over the phone. I'm supposed to bring you in and sit you down and tell you this in person. But you don't have that kind of time. You're child has Burkitt's Lymphoma and you need to get to a hospital immediately.

I went Johns Hopkins' Hospital in the Baltimore, and began chemotherapy. I survived, and am now cancer-free for 15 years.

I found out later that they had caught my cancer in late stage 1.

If we had decided not to picnic that day...
If I hadn't tripped on that tree root...
If my Mom hadn't noticed the lump in my throat...
If that doctor hadn't had a cancellation...
If they hadn't taken us when my Dad broke down....

I would be dead right now.