Posted By Amazing Moments Staff on September 28, 2009

By Ashley Mock

It all started on my 16th birthday, in March. I got my first car and was able to go, go, go. Two months later I got pregnant with my first child Caleb, and at the time was very mad, hurt, and scared. I was not sure what to do about the pregnancy, or where to turn, but I kept Caleb. He was born in February of 2001, and he was my baby! Little did I know how much he would really help me later on.

When he was six months old I started having pain in my lower back. Sometimes it would go up my back and hurt really bad; other times it would go into my legs and make it painful to walk. At the time Caleb didn’t weigh but may be fifteen pounds. I was getting to where I could not pick him up and thought there might be something really wrong with me. So I started going to doctors in my hometown, but no one could tell me anything except that I was overweight. I just didn’t believe that was why my back was hurting. I couldn’t even pick up my child.

I ended up in Jacksonville, Florida at Wolfson Children’s Hospital. I saw a doctor that wanted to run all kinds of test on me, and have the other doctors come in and talk to me. My father and I spent the night there for a couple of days. On October 18, 2001, my dad’s birthday, a doctor came in and said, “I would like to talk to you.”

We said okay. I got really scared and wondered what was about to happen. The doctor went on to tell me he had a gut feeling from looking at all the test results that I had leukemia! He wanted to do another test the next morning called a spinal tap, and a bone marrow test. They would give me medicine to put me to sleep. He said that while I was under anesthesia, he would have someone look at my blood, and if there was any sign of leukemia he would go ahead and put in a port. To my surprise, when I woke up, I had one in. I started to cry, because I then realized I had cancer. I was so worried about myself, but not only that; I was a mother, too! I remember thinking, “What am I going to do?” I had no clue. I asked the doctor if my child could be around me, and would I still be able to take care of him?

He told me I was going to start on a very hard road of chemotherapy for two years, and that at times I may not be able to take care of him. He told me I could see him and be around him, unless he had to go to his doctor for shots, like all babies do. Something with the shots and chemo didn’t agree, so that would be the only time I couldn’t be around him.

I ended up moving Caleb, at eight months old, into his grandparents’ house to take care of him seeing as I was sick and couldn’t even do for myself. By the end of November 2001, all my hair was gone; that was painful as well. I was a 17- year- old mom and had cancer! Never in my life had I thought this could happen to me, but it did. My little Caleb was the best thing for me. He would make me smile when I didn’t want to or didn’t feel like it. He would give me hugs and kisses and didn’t look at me funny just because I had no hair. I was still his mom.

I took chemo three days a week for a year and a half straight. If I wasn’t getting chemo I was getting blood, because mine was so low from the chemo. I spent many days in the hospital. This also meant I had to stop going to school. I wanted to go because I didn’t want to be another teenage mother that was a drop out. I wanted to stop most of the time because I wasn’t at home with my son Caleb, and I couldn’t do what the rest of my friends were doing. They were going out doing teenage things and I couldn’t go, I really hated it.

Chemo is a powerful drug that takes over your body to help kill the blood to start new blood forming. Going through all of this was just so hard, I didn’t want anyone to see me or be around me. It was hard on my dad because we had to go to Jacksonville to do my treatments. That meant a lot of time off work for him, and a lot of missed pay. Bills got behind and he thought we were going to lose everything because of me being sick. That in itself was hard. I felt like it was my fault, but it wasn’t. I didn’t do anything wrong to get cancer, but I did get it and had to deal with it.

It was very hard. Chemo would kill the blood and we would have to wait an extra day or week to start the next treatment. The chemo ended up being three years long instead of two. The kind of cancer I had was in my blood. They gave me chemo as much and as fast as they could to make me better. Simple things like snapping the snaps on Caleb’s clothes or buttoning things or even tying shoes were things that I couldn’t do. The chemo would make it hard for me to work my hands the way I wanted them to work, and I would have to stop and think about how to do things instead of just doing it. This made me mad because of everything else that I was going through. I always had my daddy, Caleb, and God! That is what pulled me through this hard time.

Finally 2003 came around and chemo was not as hard; it got a little easier on me. There weren’t as many trips to get chemo and blood and spinal taps. So I started feeling a little better, and wanted to go back to school to get my GED. On June 12 of 2003 I got my GED. I was so happy and proud of myself, considering everything that I had been going through. That year I also started college just to be around people and have friends again, because along the way I lost touch with a lot of my high school friends.

The year went on and things started getting better; the cancer was gone, and soon I would be done with chemo. I couldn’t wait! I started having a life besides being at the doctor’s office after all that time. Caleb was getting bigger right before my eyes and now was so used to his grandma, he didn’t want anyone but her, when he got hurt or was tired, and that hurt me a lot. It wasn’t that I gave him up. She had to take my place because I couldn’t do it; I am so thankful for her, (Kim) she is the best! In November of 2003 I went to Kim and Bill and told them I wanted to bring Caleb back slowly, let him spend the night with me at home and get used to me and his home again. I tried to see him almost everyday. Sick or not I went to see my baby, but he got close to her because she was the one taking care of him, doing for him and getting up in the middle of the night.

In February of 2004, eight days before he turned two, I brought him home with me for good! It was a happy day for me, but a sad day for Kim and Bill, because they loved Caleb as their own child and took care of him very well! I still was doing chemo during all this time but not as much;the treatments had slowed down. My last treatment was in May and they did my last spinal tap and bone marrow 5/28/2004. They told me everything looked great! I was so happy that was the last of the visits, the hard medications, and the stress. I knew I was going to make it another day.

Looking back I am glad I had to go through this, and glad I didn’t die! I had people and family around me to help my son and me. I am now 25 years old and the mother of two, and just think; they told me I might never be able to have another child, because of what the chemo did to my body. Guess I showed them. Caleb is now eight, and I have a daughter, Harmony, who is fourteen months old. Life is not easy by any means but God walked me through it, and held my hand all the way because I let him in! Having cancer and going through everything that goes along with it is not easy in any way. There were always setbacks or something going wrong, whether with my body, or with my dad trying to make ends meet. In the end it all worked out. I hope in times to come my story can help someone know not to give up no matter how hard it is! You can tell someone how the chemo makes you feel and try to get them to really understand you, but they never will unless they have been through it themselves. God always watches over us and will never put anything in our path that we can’t overcome! By Ashley Mock

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