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Narrative of Illness Assign. February 8, 2011

My Family’s Personal Experience with my Grandmother’s Colon Cancer

The diagnosis of any form of cancer can be a devastating, a shocking, and a distressing experience for any individual and that person’s family. My family and I felt similar emotions, when we discovered that my grandmother was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2008. Being a Georgia native, she worked as an elementary school teacher for 35 years. Also, she was my grandfather’s primary caretaker for 20 years in Albany Ga., who became permanently handicapped, as a result of recurrent strokes and heart attacks. Due to the extreme stress of performing daily caretaking responsibilities (cooking, cleaning, bathing and others) for my grandfather and because most of our family lived in other states, my grandmother placed my grandfather in a nursing home facility in Sylvester, GA following caring for him in the home setting for 12 years; fortunately, this facility was in very close proximity to Albany and she made frequent trips to visit him. My grandmother unselfishly cared for her husband, who passed away recently in 2007. However, over the years she had neglected her health as a result of performing strenuous caretaking duties for my grandfather. Even though Mr. Adams received top-quality care in the nursing home facility, all of us, especially my grandmother, continually worried about his health condition and quality of life. Moreover, as I vividly recall, she would go beyond her care giving tasks, by providing those things they made him most comfortable and happy.

She is a very responsible individual; she handles the majority of her financial responsibilities (paying bills) and most importantly, she took great care in seeking physicians who could provide the best yearly health screenings. Despite suffering from a severe form of gastro esophageal reflex disease (GERD), her general health was fine. Therefore, it became a...