unedited. the question i was asked to answer: In what way did your transplant experience impact who you are today?

My transplant affects my whole being today. I named my dog after my transplant doctor because I told him, “I am naming my puppy after you if I live.” I see how amazing our medical world is. I realize how doctors are human and the littlest mistake can cause a grave situation. I believe in hope. I believe in love. What I went through has allowed me to have an experience with cancer that no textbook could ever allow me to experience. It has given me the ability to love as much as I do now, to laugh as hard as I do now and to be grateful for every breath I have. I have the best family a person could ask for, the best friends a person could find and a loving partner that stuck by me through everything (and that wasn’t easy). The outpouring of love and concern from the community that occurs in crisis only illuminates the beautiful people we are. Being young and seeing that fear in your parents’ eyes is nothing you ever forget. My mother moved in with my girlfriend and me for nine months in our small apartment in Hoboken, NJ. She stayed in the hospital with me almost every night. She would tell me things were going to be okay when I asked her, “Am I going to be okay?” My father always looked to when things would get better and always thought things could be worse. I have inherited the ability to be positive and to keeping fighting inside from him. My brother and sister moved down to North Carolina to take care of my parents’ house. They made me want to live even more to watch my little niece grow up and not leave them so young. My family brought me food, told me jokes and allowed my parents to stay with them. My friends drove from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and NJ every week to see me.
I had a psychiatrist say to me one time, “Leukemia will be like a book on a shelf. You will pass it and know it is there.” I only saw him once and I disagreed with him immediately. I am in remission but my cancer book is inside of me. It is a compartment in my heart. It is filled with many chapters, that I hope to put in a book someday, but I never just pass it on a shelf. I wrote it.