I was a normal active 17 year old girl playing field hockey, softball, and participating in school musicals. I sang, played the flute, and loved hanging out with my twin sister and our best friends. I entered my senior year knowing it was going to be the best year of my life. I was a softball coach and was looking for a job that would take up my afternoons. But then everything changed.

It began in April 2003 with an innocent tap dance in the school musical, my junior year of high school. A girl collided into me and I ended up in the Emergency Room and was given an air cast for a sprained ankle. The air cast made my ankle feel worse and when I took it off, I noticed a bump smaller than a golf ball on my shin. I knew the bump was there before I sprained my ankle, but I never felt pain where the bump was until the air cast pushed against it.

Four months later, I had such extreme pain in my right shin that I had to sit out field hockey practice and watch everyone else run and do drills. The trainer, my coach, and I finally convinced my parents that it was time to get for a physician to look at my bump. I had x-rays taken of my ankle before, but it turns out the previous x-rays were taken about a quarter of an inch away from what they should have discovered: my malignant tumor. Several x-rays, MRIs, and bone scans later, on September 23, 2003, I was told that I had Ewing 's Sarcoma, bone cancer, in my right fibula. I had never known anyone with cancer, and I thought it only happened to unhealthy, inactive people, so I was very confused.

A biopsy confirmed that I indeed had a malignant tumor, and there began the bumpy roller coaster known as my battle against cancer. My parents and I talked to the oncologists and nurses. I was told that I would be getting high intensity chemotherapy every two weeks for 14 rounds. The rounds were rotated every other time with one round being five nights, while the other round was three nights.

I had chemotherapy for three months and on January 22, 2004, I had limb salvage surgery, a six hour process where doctors would remove my entire fibula. I was told that they would need to cut through a few nerves and that I would likely lose feeling in the top of my right foot and down the side of my right leg. So far, they were correct. I also have a scar that runs from my knee to my ankle. I was in the hospital for two nights, not able to shift my weight much or get up because my leg felt so heavy. I was on crutches for a month and a half and given a leg mold to help me walk better. Following physical therapy, I am able to do everything a normal teenager is able to do, except ski and ice skate.

After my surgery, I endured four more months of high intensity chemotherapy. Because of the intensity of the drugs, I never ate and was always weak for several days after leaving the hospital. Walking up stairs was a nightmare and I rarely got out of bed. I would need up to three blood transfusions and platelet transfusions after every chemotherapy round. Like most people on chemotherapy, I did lose my hair. It started falling out at the end of October and I ended up pulling most of it out and shaving the rest of it on Halloween.

One hard part of this experience was watching my sister and our friends go on our senior trip; go into New York City; attend dances; and do many other fun things, while I sat in the hospital nauseous and weak. I also sat back as the field hockey team became third in the county and sixth in the state. I never got to see my softball team win games and attend ice cream and pizza parties together.

For the next five years, I have to go to the hospital every three months to get CT scans, bone scans, MRIs, x-rays, and blood tests. My roller coaster ride does not end for quite some time. The good news is that I have been in remission for nine months! I celebrated my 18 th birthday by going on a Caribbean cruise that was given to my family free from the Make-A-Wish-Foundation.

After I got out of the hospital, I graduated from high school and am now attending James Madison University in Virginia . People say that they must be getting punished when they get cancer, but I feel that it was a blessing in disguise. Don't get me wrong, I would not wish cancer on anyone, but I also would never take back my experience.