Post created by Tiffanie
If you can think back to the day when you are ready to start high school. You are ready for football games, proms and meeting junior and senior guys or girls. These are the moments that you have been dreaming about since you started attending school. When you were attending Elementary school, you didn’t put much thought into everyday activities because you were just a kid learning about how the Earth functions. When middle school started it was one of the most uncomfortable years of your life mainly because of the fact that puberty has started to hit you. Certain subjects are starting to become awkward to talk about between opposite genders. Therefore, you are glad that all of the awkward stages are over, and you can attend high school where everyone is more mature and responsible toward their actions. You are ready to experience romance and get stronger at Basketball which is what you the best at when you were a middle schooler.
However, just before high school is starting you started to notice some symptoms that is out of the ordinary. Therefore, you went to the hospital to run some basic tests and the doctors reported to you a few days later that you have leukemia and you should start chemotherapy right away. With this news being a reality for you it affects the fact that you cannot participate in varsity basketball or any sort of afterschool activities because your immune system might not be strong enough for that much school. The worst of all is that you have to attend chemotherapy everyday afterschool in order to stay alive. With that said, your hair will start to fall our and you will be completely bald by the second week of chemotherapy. All of this sound impossible for most people to handle but this is possible for Alexa because she has Katie to help her every step of the way. Alexa & Katie is a hit TV show which aired on Netflix in March of 2018. The fact that Alexa cannot participate in varsity basketball hit her really hard emotionally but all this time she had her best friend Katie to support her. Even though Katie still participate in afterschool activities, Katie was willing to shave her head for Alexa as she stated on the show, “As long as you are my best friend, you never have to go through anything alone. (Alexa & Katie, 2018)” The type of cancer that Alexa has is leukemia.
Leukemia is the type of cancer that associates with the blood or with the bone marrow, it develops mainly due to a problem with blood cells production. Leukemia mostly effects the leukocytes or also known as the white blood cells, but this depends from patient to patient. Patients who are going through early stages of leukemia development doesn’t experience any symptoms. Some common symptoms for leukemia patients would be fever, pain in bones or joints, bleeding, or frequent infections. However, to medically confirm that a patient has leukemia they would need to go through a series of tests in order to medically confirm that this patient has leukemia. When a patient is confirmed and they start their treatment, they usually start with chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is a type of treatment that uses drugs to stop the growth of cancer cells either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Chemotherapy can be given by mouth, injection, infusion or on the skin depending on what stage each patient is at. As for Alexa, she is receiving her chemotherapy through infusion. Another type of treatment that can be used on Alexa would be blood transfusion. Blood transfusion is a routine medical procedure in which donated blood is provided to the patient through an infusion process. However, most leukemia patients would not need a blood transfusion procedure unless they are bleeding unintentionally.
With the fact that Alexa would have to go through this process most of the days after school, Katie was willing to give up her after school activities so she can be with Alexa. Having a great friend like Katie is a friend that is impossible to find these days. The fact that Katie was willing to give up her high school activities so she can be with Alexa when Alexa is receiving chemotherapy is a huge sacrifice. This is also a sacrifice most high schoolers would not want to sacrifice because we only get one high school experience, we don’t get multiple. Therefore, if you meet someone that is going through a similar situation in the future think about what they are going through physically, mentally and emotionally before you think about yourself and your activities because with you being there for them might change their lives forever.
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