One word. One word is all it takes to change someone's life. It can mean a field full of roses, or a thousand stabs to the heart. It can make you feel empowered, or leave you stranded on an island full of unspoken emotions. I am here to tell you a story about a person who was struck with one word that changed her life. It undoubtedly turned her world upside down and managed to steer her onto a path where only a few venture, and only a few ever come out. This is the story about Meileen Ortega, a woman who stands by her family, career and friends, a woman who fights for people's lives and a woman who is an oncologist with cancer.
Life is precious, it grabs you by surprise when you least expect it and gives you a thousand blessings that you hold dear to your heart. Life gave me my best friend. Life gave me love, family, and friends. I study in the states, and my best friend studies back home, but we still manage to find time to call each other every single day. We laugh, we cry and most importantly we find a way to be there for one another through the most hardest of times.
Meileen, my best friend's mom, was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer with lymph node involvement.
"I remember it being a normal day. The 15th of August, I went to eat breakfast with my friends and in the afternoon I did my mammogram. That same day they told me they found an abnormality. August 16th I went to get a biopsy and on August 17th I was diagnosed."
-Meileen
It is hard to understand what one word can do to a person. It is hard to put yourself in other people's shoes when your life is normal and so different from theirs.
"I was ten years old when my grandmother died from cancer. Since that point, I always knew that I wanted to be an oncologist."
Meileen studied her bachelor's and doctorate in Puerto Rico. She studied in the Recinto de Ciencias Medica, and did medical school in the Universidad Central del Caribe. Meileen is an oncologist. An oncologist that serves every day to fight one of the hardest battles people face.
"The best part of being an oncologist is being able to help people through one of the hardest and most traumatizing periods of their lives. I feel blessed every time I help a person even for just one day. Since cancer has no cure, helping for a day, six weeks, or even for ten years is what caused me to love what I do. Time is borrowed, I try to help people with the time that they have."
As an oncologist, there is a lot of pain, sacrifice and a roller coaster of emotions that spiral up and down. It is a tidal wave full of sad moments, but it is also an awakening.
"I feel like I am predicting what I practice. I have had to give myself my own advice. I was sad at first--I cried and cried and cried because I knew what it meant. I then felt calm, putting my faith in God then in oncology."
For Meileen, the hardest part is being an oncologist. The hardest part is knowing beforehand what it all means, what is going to happen and what won't happen.
"It is not the same saying to my patients what will happen to actually experience it. My wake up call was when my hair fell. It was the moment when my nightmare came to a reality because it was actually happening. I knew I was going to get chemotherapy and I felt when they put in the med port, but what really hit me was when all my hair fell."
Cancer patients are a certain type of fighter, they are the best warriors that strive to be the best that they can. There will be days when life seems impossible, but for Meileen her family is what keeps her going. My best friend, her brothers, and sisters are what keep her going. They are the light of her life, and in them she sees happiness.
"I want to be strong. I want to show to my children, to my family that I can do it. I want to impact people in a positive way and try to make the best of the situation. I will not have guilt or be ashamed of what is happening to me. Yes, there will be hard days but life is short. I want to include my family, my friends--the people that I love in my life."
After the first tear, there will come many more, but the important thing is to surround yourself with love. To surround yourself with people that you know will always stand by your side. I stand next to my best friend, and I stand next to Meileen.
"It has made me susceptible to pain. As a mother of four children, I had to set my priorities. I had to set my priorities one day at a time."
"For the very hard months to come, I want to fight. Now I see more than ever the blessings in my life, I see the expressions of love all around me and that fills me up with happiness. Something on August 17th changed my life. There is nothing that can prepare you for it, not even being an oncologist. All I want is to demonstrate that it is not the end of the world. I want at least one person to know my story and see that they are not alone. I am not alone, and neither is anyone. It is easy for people to love you when you are okay, but being sick, that is really when I see love and feel loved."
"October is breast cancer awareness month. You need to put in order your family, friends, and most especially your health because you can see people get cancer but it can happen to anyone and nothing can prepare you if it happens to you. So include everyone in your life in a positive way, show them that it is not the end, and because you have cancer doesn't mean you can't keep living life. Stand up and stay up because it is what it is."
There is hope. There is love. There is faith.
Support one another, love one another and demonstrate to everyone that they are not alone. Meileen is a mother, an oncologist, and a patient and in her, faith and love are stronger than ever. She will keep on fighting for her family. She will keep on fighting for my best friend. Nothing is ever going to stop her fight, and for those out there in the same position, don't let anything ever stop your fight. In the darkest moments in one's life, there is always light. There is always going to be something that will make you shed a tear of sadness, but also a tear of joy. Joy to see that the world is full of life, the world is full of love and that the world is full of warriors-- like Meileen, like you and like me.
