Exactly 3 years ago on December 10th I lost my uncle to cancer. Even though I was only 11 this probably made the biggest impact in my life and I will never forget it. The thoughts that go through my head are so hard to forget. My uncle had the greatest sense of humor always made people laugh and smile. The last summer I saw him before he died I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't point out what it was until I found out he had cancer. He took his dog Lucas on a walk and Lucas saw a squirrel and the leash wrapped around my uncles leg and he fell. The next day when he woke up his leg was black and blue, so my aunt being a doctor treated his leg because she thought it was a blood clot from the leash wrapping around his leg.  My family went to go visit him in the hospital and then we went to their house after. My aunt and uncle said they wanted to have a “family meeting” which was something we never did so I knew something was wrong. At that point I think everyone thought we were going to Disney or something because who wouldn’t want to go there. All I thought about was being in the blazing sun and meeting all of the disney characters. It was the complete opposite “I have cancer” my uncle said. It took me a while to process what was actually happening to him, then I saw tears rolling down my grandmas face and I knew it was not good. Seeing my grandma cry was heartbreaking to me because shes the one that always tells me everything will be ok but this time it wasn’t.
    My Uncle was diagnosed with Leukemia which is blood cancer. I always heard about it but never really took it seriously until I saw how it took over my uncle. He started losing hair about a week into chemotherapy and his skin started looking very pale which was very unusual because living in Georgia you usually have a pretty decent tan year round. I never wanted to go back home I wanted to spend every second with him that I could because I knew his last breath could be any day or any minute. My relationship with him slowly started to dwindle, he spent most of his time in a dark smelly hospital bed with what seemed like 10,000 cords attached to his weak body and a big red oxygen tank next to his bed that his daughter put big foam stickers all over to spell daddy with a heart. He also had enough medication to have his own pharmacy, it took a whole table to fit everything. All I can remember from that day is the nurses running into the room and telling all visitors to leave because his blood oxygen levels were at a dangerous low and the machine attached to his chest beeping rapidly. He went in for an MRI,  it light up like a christmas tree. White spots showed up all over on the tiny computer screen, and it made the whole screen look white. His body was more cancer than anything else at this point. The doctors told him that the cancer was the most dangerous in his right leg so they would have to amputate it or have cancer. He chose to have his leg amputated.
   September 3rd was a “miracle day” because that was his last day of chemotherapy, and he wouldn't be hooked up to a million cords drawing blood and putting new blood in his body. He also was able to drive because he had a prosthetic leg, so to celebrate being able to drive and his cancer getting better again he went out and bought his favorite car he always wanted a big black Mercedes suv. We also found out his cancer stopped spreading and was getting a lot better and it was his birthday, but the last birthday he ever would have, So my whole family went to St. Augustine Florida to make it special, because he always wanted to be with family.  It was really sad because he was still sick but since he had 1 leg he couldn't go down to the beach because there were too many stairs for him so he sat on the big plastic bench on the blazing hot boardwalk, he wanted all of us to go have fun but knowing he was slowly dying it was very obvious it also was his birthday we couldn't do that to him. We found a place where we could drive on the beach as my uncle got out of the car there were many blank stares because he only had one leg and lost all of his hair he was used to it so just ignored them, a lot of kids ran to their parents asking “why does that man only have one leg”. Something that really sticks with me is when he came back from being in the ocean with his dog  and his body instantly turned blue and purple especially his lips and he closed his eyes and laid on the long white beach chair with the sun setting behind him and his big wet dog at his side,  I thought that was it and I never would talk to him again. Nothing was ever the same after that, he started forgetting basic things like his daughter, wife and dogs name maybe he was doing that on purpose? He wasn’t, that night he woke up crying because he wasn’t going to be able to see his daughter Elaina grow up all he wanted ever was to be a dad and see his kids grow up.
     After 6 months of battling this beast, it won, he died December 10th 2011. The big Hospice van pulled into their driveway 7 hours before he died, it was a very long time because we didn’t know when his time would be it was 8:30 in the morning and he was laying on my aunt’s lap and started choking on his medicine and thats when it happened. My aunt being a cardiac practitioner doctor started performing CPR and everything else she knew to see if that could help catch his breath she started crying hysterically on his weak body while her head sunk into his chest. At that moment I felt like I was going to die, a huge part of me and many others was gone. He was only 33, he had his whole life ahead of him. The doctors put his body in a big black bag and they carefully put it in their big black van and drove away. His funeral was heartbreaking, so many memories I never got to see of him but I still could imagine him doing them.