Jack had noticed that lately, his aunt Carol hadn’t been her usual self.  She would often have to lie down because of tiredness or dizzy spells, and he could tell by the way she walked that movement was sometimes painful. He tried to ask his mom what was wrong, but she would never give him a direct answer.  Twice, he had walked in the kitchen and noticed that the adults talking would fall silent as soon as he entered the room. 

One day when he got home from school, he walked into the living room to find his parents and uncle sitting on the couch looking concerned.  “Jack, come sit down,” said his mother warmly. He could tell she had been crying.  “I know that you’ve noticed that Aunt Carol hasn’t been herself lately. I want to tell you that she is sick. She has a disease called leukemia, which is a type of cancer of the blood. She’s going to be staying in the hospital for a while, and the doctors are doing all that they can to make her better.”

A few days later, Carol returned form the hospital. She looked tired and thin, but there was a smile on her face. She gathered the family into the den and explained to them that she was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, but the doctors had caught it relatively early. “Dr. Jones was concerned when I told him that I had been feeling overly tired and he noticed that my spleen, which is part of my abdomen, was very swollen. He decided to run some blood tests, just to be safe. After the results of the blood test, Dr. Jones decided to perform a bone marrow aspiration, which means he used a little needle to check the spongy stuff inside my bones, where leukemia is formed. I’m going to have to receive radiation therapy, which will kill the bad cells in my body. Unfortunately, it also kills some of the good cells. But soon, if all goes well, I will be cancer-free.”

Carol received her treatment, and eventually her symptoms started to fade. After five years of being cancer-free, Carol is her old self – fun-loving, active, and healthy.