SOCY1097 Lecture Notes - The Great Gig In The Sky, Shining Path, Mechanical Ventilation

• School: Boston College
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCY1097
• Professor: Elaine Tarutis

Document Summary

My first and most personal experience with death is actually not an experience with death per se but rather an experience with the precariousness of life. When i was three years old, i was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia, a cancer of the blood. Nowadays this cancer is pretty treatable with a survival rate close to ninety percent, however; in 1994, it was predicted only 6 of every 10 patients diagnosed would survive. I, of course only being three years old at the time, did not realize then how sick i really was. I did however, realize something was horribly wrong with me and it made my mother cry herself to sleep for nights at a time. The entire year or so when i was undergoing intense chemotherapy, i felt awful (probably from the medicine) and scared. My fear originated from a conversation with my mother about two weeks into treatment.