By; Olivia Wheatley
"When I was younger, I had no clue what I wanted to do when I left high school. No clue where I wanted to go to college or where I even wanted to live. I never took my education to seriously .I was completely clueless to what my future held for me. It wasn't until my freshman year in high school when my whole mentality about everything had drastically changed. My 13 year old brother was diagnosed with cancer. This had changed everything I ever thought or believed in, but i never thought the worse. Focusing on school and not putting family first, was even harder. My brother needed a bone marrow transplant for him to become healthier and to prevent the cancer from growing. I was a 100 percent match and was able to donate mine to him. This allowed me to save his life and to help others for I signed up to donate to anyone else who was a match to mine. All while this was happening, I was still able to participate in sports at Howard and extra curricular activities. Visiting the hospital everyday gave me an opportunity to not just help my family but to help many others. Helping others was always an important aspect in my household. We learned to always put others and their emotions before ours. Watching others and the way they had felt made me want to help them learn how to cope just like I had to learn to. This sparked an idea I had to start advocating for research and to volunteer at local cancer organizations. This experience had lead me to want to pursue a career as a child life specialist and to major in psychology in college. Having friends that supported me, helped me even more. They boosted my confidence even when they knew it may not work out. Getting them involved was hard but if it made me happy, then they would gladly do it. Helping people has made me become a better person of who I was and change my mentality overall."
Olivia's Connection:
I connect to the story because I also like to volunteer at local organizations and help people out. Samantha is my sister and both had experienced this time and situation in our lives.
