By Miley, Camp Counselor
(Bellflower, California) – I had walked away. I wasn’t going to do it, that’s what I repeated to my mom when we walked out of church, passing the Camp Savio volunteer booth. I already had summer plans, so why would I consider adding more? But as I walked into the parking lot, I stopped in my tracks as my family passed me, continuing their walk to the car. I couldn’t explain it at the time, but I felt that I needed to turn around, so I did. I walked over to the booth and got the information for Camp Savio. Now looking back, I could say that the feeling could only be God’s providence because I didn’t know that this summer would change my life in ways most people can’t fathom, in ways I’m still trying to process.
This summer was my first year volunteering at Camp Savio, and I was like every other sixteen-year-old girl. I had initially started Savio to try something new, and if I was being honest, I just wanted to make friends. I had been homeschooled since I was eight and only really made connections through my hobbies, but maybe this was an opportunity to go and meet new people. As my training came to an end and Camp Savio began, I was placed in liturgy, where I met many amazing people and connected well with my fellow counselors, who are now some of my greatest friends.
During the second week at Savio, it was finally a beach day, the day before my life would be completely changed. I woke up feeling weak but assumed it was just my period, which normally makes me a bit sick. I spent the day alright, but still not feeling my best. After Savio, I got home and decided to take a small nap before my guitar class that day, but the moment I woke up, I had one of the worst fevers I’ve ever had. It didn’t get better, and the next morning I sprawled across the couch, feeling like a zombie. Around nine in the morning, my mom decided that something wasn’t right, and I should go to the doctor. I was in a bad state: my throat hurt so bad that I couldn’t speak, I felt incredibly weak, and I was freezing cold despite it being the middle of summer. It made sense that my mom was worried. As we arrived at my usual doctor’s office, she took one look at me and decided I should go to the emergency room across the street.
This visit was the first time I ever experienced an emergency room. They did standard procedures. I had blood drawn and tested, received IV fluids, an X-ray, and a CT scan. The CT scan was odd, but I assumed it was standard procedure. We arrived at 11:00 a.m. and were ready to leave at 4:00 p.m. The doctor working with me pulled my mom and me aside in a small corner, holding a file in her hand. At this point, I was feeling much better, though she said I had COVID. I remembered a sickness was going around Camp Savio, so it must have been that. But why the file? She then explained that I just needed to stay home and rest, as they weren’t worried about COVID, but there was something else. What was in the file? She opened the file to reveal an X-ray, turning to my mom, saying, “While she got her X-ray, we found a large mass in her chest, probably about the size of a tennis ball. She needs to be admitted into the hospital so we can find out what this is.” I remember looking over at my mom, trying to read her expression; we both didn’t know what to feel or think at the time. Later that day, after getting home from the hospital, I saw my mom on the phone with my grandpa, in distress about what we were told. I think this was the moment I realized that something was wrong and that something big was coming. I didn’t know that the entire trajectory of my life was going to change that day.
Getting COVID at Savio in some strange way could only be described as a God-forsaken miracle; every doctor I met who learned my story has repeated something along those lines. The mass they had discovered in my chest was a tumor. It was a completely accidental find that resulted from getting sick at summer camp. It took weeks to finally get an answer, but I had a tumor. How could I have a tumor? I had been perfectly healthy and never had any sort of effects, but apparently, I had a tumor that had rotted away most of my left lung. Doctors couldn’t explain it, I shouldn’t be able to breathe perfectly normally, and I was very lucky for this accidental discovery. Over the rest of the summer, my life had been flipped upside down. I had gone from your average sixteen-year-old girl to a cancer patient, my life was doctors’ appointments, surgeries, hospital stays, and lots of change.
When I share my story, it’s easy to focus on the bad and hard. There is a lot of bad and hard, cancer has stripped me bare of who I am entirely. I’ve had to sit with reality in a way most people don’t. I don’t know what my life will look like, and I don’t know what the future holds. It’s common for a lot of people to think, “Why me?” When this happens, I have those days too. But in truth, I’ve never felt closer to God than I have in the past couple of months. I’ve learned what it is to feel true gratitude, love, and hope throughout the hardest experience I’ve ever gone through. I’ve lost a lot in the past couple of months. I’ve lost my autonomy, any sense of normalcy, and even a literal lung, but I have also gained such a beautiful life through my health journey. I’ve made new friends thanks to Savio, I’ve grown incredibly close to my family, I’ve learned and grown into who I am and who I want to be, and I’ve experienced what it’s like to love and be loved fully and wholly. And to think that all this started because of catching COVID at summer camp. When I think back to the beginning of the summer, I remember all those times when I almost quit Savio or never intended to sign up in the first place, and how, for some reason, I ended up where I needed to be.
For now, my health is doing really well. I’ve gotten my tumor taken out and currently have clear margins, as my life is slowly getting back to normal. My life looks really different from what it did a couple of months ago, and it will continue to look different, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Miley.