"The Last Eight Years" by Elliana LaBree

Photo by Martha Dominguez De Gouveia on Unsplash

I stepped out of the car. 

“Do you want to get a photo in front of the building, Ellie?” my mother asked.

“I’m good,” I replied.

I used to get all dressed up for these appointments and take a mini photo shoot before. Today I just wasn’t feeling up for it. Instead, I had decided to wear a hoodie and shorts and figured maybe I’d take a photo later, just so I could have some memories. We walked into the tall building, and the next thing I knew we were on an elevator. The ride up was quiet, which only allowed my anxiety to grow. The elevator dinged and we stepped off into the silent, lengthy hall. We paced down the hall toward the door leading into the waiting room. The nauseating smell of the room immediately triggered me. 

We walked up to the front desk. I looked around the room and as I saw the blue-painted slab of wood saying ‘Camp Hope,’ thoughts of camp came streaming back. It had been so fun, and I’d made so many new friends who had also struggled with the same feelings and problems I had. It had been nice to be around people who got it. 

“Hold out your arm.” 

I was brought out of my thoughts to see an expectant nurse waiting with a hospital bracelet. I stuck my arm out reluctantly as the nurse clipped the bracelet onto my arm. The thin plastic looped around my wrist sharply pressed against my skin. If only I’d been saving my hospital bands from the beginning.

After a while of sitting down and waiting to be seen, a nurse finally called my name and ushered us into a room. I took off my sneakers and climbed under a measurer so they could take my height and stepped onto a scale so they could take my weight. Next came the part I had been dreading. The nurse took out a needle the size of the Eiffel Tower.“Which arm do you prefer?”

Neither is what I wanted to say. “My right.”

I looked away. I felt the nurse tie a tight rubber band around my right arm and started feeling around for veins. She let go, got up, and walked toward all the tools, presumably to get the needle. I tightly clenched my fists and my breathing quickened. I snapped my eyes closed and felt a sharp sting in my forearm.

It felt like an eternity, but the hard part was over. I acquired a new Dora the Explorer band-aid and we were ushered to a different room. This one had a firm foam hospital bed and two plastic chairs. I hopped up on the bed. “Do you want any snacks?” the nurse asked. 

“Sure,” I replied. 

She left and quickly returned with peanut butter crackers and ginger ale. The staples of basic and unflavored hospital food. Then, she exited the room again and left my mom and me to wait for the blood test results. 

I always had this small fear in the back of my mind about everything. I’d try to ignore it but sometimes it would catch up to me. All my normal thoughts would be overridden by so many loud, pounding voices shrieking about how I was going to die one day, and–I turned on my phone, and decided scrolling through Instagram would be the best way to drown out my thoughts.

The sounds of the wood door squeaking open and clunky footsteps startled me. I looked up to see a familiar face. “Hey, Ellie.” 

It was my oncologist. 

“Hey,” I replied. 

She asked me a couple of questions about my health and how I’d been doing, and then she finished up by telling us the test results. “Well, there is no evidence of disease in your tests!” 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was probably that. It had been eight years already since I had last had cancer, so why would it come back so late? I don’t like thinking about the possibility of having cancer again, not catching it in time, and dying before high school is over. I have known too many people who had their cancer either kill them or survive it and then have it come back but worse. 

That happening to me is one of my biggest fears in life. Dying young. I mean obviously, everyone will pass eventually, but I want to accomplish something first, past middle school. I want to be a social worker. I want to help kids who are young and have had bad childhoods and need someone to support them. Being that person and understanding what they're going through is my dream job. I want to be someone who I needed when I was young.

“You guys are free to go!” she finished up. I thanked her and headed out the door back to the front desk. 

As my mom and I strode out of the hospital exit, I reminisced about how this was a never-ending cycle of hospital visits. Eventually, once they believe that my cancer has a low enough chance of coming back, they’ll space them out until I just stop going entirely. 

Death. Something little Ellie with cancer didn’t understand. Something older Ellie now still doesn’t really understand. What happens after death? Nobody knows. I think that’s the scary thing. The unknown. Just like I’ll never know why I was picked, at only five years of age, to have a life-threatening disease.

Elliana LaBree is thirteen years old. She lives in Glenburn, Maine, and attends Orono Middle School. Elliana was diagnosed with Orbital Rhabdomyosarcoma (eye cancer) when she was four years old. After undergoing proton beam radiation therapy and chemotherapy, the oncologists found no signs of the cancer left in her body, when she was five years old. Now in the present day, Elliana enjoys playing chess, being dramatic in theater, and playing video games.