This is me, Erin Grace Oliva, or EGO if you like.
This is me in one of my favorite places, Clover Avenue Elementary School. I have lived a few blocks away from it for about 21 1/2 years, nearly my entire life. I went there as a student, and I like to go back there to read my book to the kids who go there now. I am standing beside one of my good friends, one of the teachers there, and I am wearing my Zemondrayan Hunter Uniform, which I made myself. Well, I didn't sew the entire thing, just parts of it. This picture was taken in 2012, and I look about the same now that I am 23.
I suppose you might like to know why I look the same. (Here there are monsters, but I'll warn you about them).
So here is my story: I have lived in Los Angeles all my life, and my parents were born here, raised here, and moved back here from having lived in Northern CA. I have a younger brother, and a dog named Barkley. My brother is currently 21, 2 years and four months younger than I am, and my dog is about 9 years old.
If my life were a book I think the most exciting and terrifying event would be something which I promised to tell you about before, why I look so young.
When I was seven years old I started to have these things called seizures. You might know someone who has them. Anyone can have a seizure and they are very different for every person who has them. Some people faint or fall over or act very strange. If someone has a seizure he/she cannot control his/her body. He/she may do strange things like stare off into space, lose focus, become confused, hop up and down or make other movements he/she cannot control. It is not his/her fault and it is not dangerous to you, but if you notice this happening to someone go to a responsible adult and let them know. The person having the seizure may be in danger.
Most people do not have seizures unless they are under extreme pressure, such as if they are very sick with a high fever, but some people have them more often. People who have seizures often can have them due to extreme stress and trauma, such as if they have had really bad things happen to them, such as a brain injury, they could have a condition called epilepsy, or they could have them for no clear reason.
I started to have them when I was seven. My brother noticed something was wrong with me and he told my parents. They took me to a doctor and they did tests on me and discovered I had a thing growing in my head. It was a thing called cancer. You might know someone who has cancer.
Cancer is not something you can catch like a cold. Like a seizure, it is dangerous only to the person who has it and not to you. If you have a friend who has cancer be supportive. They need you very much. It may be scary for you, but it would help them a lot if they have someone to go with them to get treatment sometimes, if you have the time. Seeing a good friend get very sick may be scary, but you should not be scared. You aren't in any danger, and they need you. They need you very much to help them to be strong. Be positive and help your friend. Hang out with them as if nothing were different. Friendship is the best kind of theraphy for someone in a difficult situation. Think of them as you would normally, and not as someone who sick, and they will do much better. Don't be afraid if your friend wants to talk to you about how the doctors put needles in them, or how they had part of their body cut open, but if they don't want to talk about it don't ask them. AND REMEMBER THAT NO ONE IS GOING TO HURT YOU.
If your friend does not want to talk about their experience don't tell other people, and if they do remember they only want to tell YOU. Do not tell your other friends or your parents about it, unless you are truly afraid, and then tell them only about why you are afraid and do not speak about your friend. Your friend needs YOUR HELP. If your friend needs the help of parents they do not need the help of YOUR parents. Your friend is not actually sick. Your friend does not need anything more from you than you would do for any other one of your good friends. The best thing YOU can do for your friend is to treat him/her normally, but to also remember he/she may not be able to do certain things for a while.
I went through many treatments for my cancer and it was very scary for me. They cut open my head to take out the cancer I had. They cut right through my skull and now I have titanium in my head. I also had to go in many days and miss a lot of school so I could get a treatment called radiation where they targeted a laser at the area in my head where there was still a tiny bit of the cancer they couldn't cut out. Still the doctors were worried that it might come back so they gave me this stuff, these drugs they call chemotheraphy, which is the most scary thing.
(You might want to skip this part. I'll tell you when it's over.)
Chemotheraphy: In order for you to live you have cells and these cells are all alive, except for the stuff on the very outside, your upper layer of skin, your nails, and your hair. All your other cells are alive, but your cells are constantly dying. Your body constantly makes new cells to replace the old dead ones. So what this treatment does is it stops this process. Your cells die, you die, and the cancer dies because the cancer is a group of cells which are growing out of control and this hurts the rest of your body. They grow into a thing called a tumor. So to make sure this tumor doesn't come back again, people are given these drugs which kill their cells. Unfortunately this treatment kills all the cells and not just the cancer cells. This causes you to die from the inside out. You lose your hair and lose a lot of weight and start to look really thin and pale and you can start to see your bones. Also, if you're a person who is not yet an adult, like I was when I had this treatment, your body is putting all it's rescources into staying alive so instead of growing, you shrink and when you are young you are supposed to grow. So it is possible to fully recover from everything except for this lack of growth? Physically some people recover entirely, but your mind is hurt too. My writing and my art help me to heal my mind, but something will always be there.
Scary Part is Over Now:
So... I'm small because I went through a lot of hard times and hard times can do weird things to you, like shrink you, in my case physically. However, they can make you grow in other ways. I learned a lot about what it really means to be strong in the face of horrible, painful, scary things. I am still learning about it, too, and I hope I can teach you about it, the easy (easier) there is no easy way... but I hope I can help in some way.
This is me in one of my favorite places, Clover Avenue Elementary School. I have lived a few blocks away from it for about 21 1/2 years, nearly my entire life. I went there as a student, and I like to go back there to read my book to the kids who go there now. I am standing beside one of my good friends, one of the teachers there, and I am wearing my Zemondrayan Hunter Uniform, which I made myself. Well, I didn't sew the entire thing, just parts of it. This picture was taken in 2012, and I look about the same now that I am 23.
I suppose you might like to know why I look the same. (Here there are monsters, but I'll warn you about them).
So here is my story: I have lived in Los Angeles all my life, and my parents were born here, raised here, and moved back here from having lived in Northern CA. I have a younger brother, and a dog named Barkley. My brother is currently 21, 2 years and four months younger than I am, and my dog is about 9 years old.
If my life were a book I think the most exciting and terrifying event would be something which I promised to tell you about before, why I look so young.
When I was seven years old I started to have these things called seizures. You might know someone who has them. Anyone can have a seizure and they are very different for every person who has them. Some people faint or fall over or act very strange. If someone has a seizure he/she cannot control his/her body. He/she may do strange things like stare off into space, lose focus, become confused, hop up and down or make other movements he/she cannot control. It is not his/her fault and it is not dangerous to you, but if you notice this happening to someone go to a responsible adult and let them know. The person having the seizure may be in danger.
Most people do not have seizures unless they are under extreme pressure, such as if they are very sick with a high fever, but some people have them more often. People who have seizures often can have them due to extreme stress and trauma, such as if they have had really bad things happen to them, such as a brain injury, they could have a condition called epilepsy, or they could have them for no clear reason.
I started to have them when I was seven. My brother noticed something was wrong with me and he told my parents. They took me to a doctor and they did tests on me and discovered I had a thing growing in my head. It was a thing called cancer. You might know someone who has cancer.
Cancer is not something you can catch like a cold. Like a seizure, it is dangerous only to the person who has it and not to you. If you have a friend who has cancer be supportive. They need you very much. It may be scary for you, but it would help them a lot if they have someone to go with them to get treatment sometimes, if you have the time. Seeing a good friend get very sick may be scary, but you should not be scared. You aren't in any danger, and they need you. They need you very much to help them to be strong. Be positive and help your friend. Hang out with them as if nothing were different. Friendship is the best kind of theraphy for someone in a difficult situation. Think of them as you would normally, and not as someone who sick, and they will do much better. Don't be afraid if your friend wants to talk to you about how the doctors put needles in them, or how they had part of their body cut open, but if they don't want to talk about it don't ask them. AND REMEMBER THAT NO ONE IS GOING TO HURT YOU.
If your friend does not want to talk about their experience don't tell other people, and if they do remember they only want to tell YOU. Do not tell your other friends or your parents about it, unless you are truly afraid, and then tell them only about why you are afraid and do not speak about your friend. Your friend needs YOUR HELP. If your friend needs the help of parents they do not need the help of YOUR parents. Your friend is not actually sick. Your friend does not need anything more from you than you would do for any other one of your good friends. The best thing YOU can do for your friend is to treat him/her normally, but to also remember he/she may not be able to do certain things for a while.
I went through many treatments for my cancer and it was very scary for me. They cut open my head to take out the cancer I had. They cut right through my skull and now I have titanium in my head. I also had to go in many days and miss a lot of school so I could get a treatment called radiation where they targeted a laser at the area in my head where there was still a tiny bit of the cancer they couldn't cut out. Still the doctors were worried that it might come back so they gave me this stuff, these drugs they call chemotheraphy, which is the most scary thing.
(You might want to skip this part. I'll tell you when it's over.)
Chemotheraphy: In order for you to live you have cells and these cells are all alive, except for the stuff on the very outside, your upper layer of skin, your nails, and your hair. All your other cells are alive, but your cells are constantly dying. Your body constantly makes new cells to replace the old dead ones. So what this treatment does is it stops this process. Your cells die, you die, and the cancer dies because the cancer is a group of cells which are growing out of control and this hurts the rest of your body. They grow into a thing called a tumor. So to make sure this tumor doesn't come back again, people are given these drugs which kill their cells. Unfortunately this treatment kills all the cells and not just the cancer cells. This causes you to die from the inside out. You lose your hair and lose a lot of weight and start to look really thin and pale and you can start to see your bones. Also, if you're a person who is not yet an adult, like I was when I had this treatment, your body is putting all it's rescources into staying alive so instead of growing, you shrink and when you are young you are supposed to grow. So it is possible to fully recover from everything except for this lack of growth? Physically some people recover entirely, but your mind is hurt too. My writing and my art help me to heal my mind, but something will always be there.
Scary Part is Over Now:
So... I'm small because I went through a lot of hard times and hard times can do weird things to you, like shrink you, in my case physically. However, they can make you grow in other ways. I learned a lot about what it really means to be strong in the face of horrible, painful, scary things. I am still learning about it, too, and I hope I can teach you about it, the easy (easier) there is no easy way... but I hope I can help in some way.