Cancer Survivors

My name is Tyler and I'm from Tyler, TX, and I am proud to be cancer survivor. When I was diagnosed we were living in Colorado at the time. One week when I was 5 years old, my parents noticed that wasn't feeling very well. I had a low grade fever, no appetite, and a ring around my mouth. They took me to the local hospital and ran some tests. They determined I had cancer cells somewhere in my body, likely lukemia, but they couldn't determine for sure what kind or where. The next day we drove to Denver Children's Hospital. We went to the oncology dept. where they ran a bone marrow asperation. Shortly afterwards, a sonogram revealed a malignant tumor growing in my abdomen. I was diagnosed with Burkitt's Lymphoma, a very rare cancer most commonly found in Africa. They removed the tumor (along with about a foot of intestine) during a four hour procedure. I spent the next year in the hopsital undergoing various procedures and extensive chemotherapy. I lost all my hair from the chemo and became very ematiated. As you can imagine, it was a very traumatic experience for a 5 year old, but luckily I survived and have been in remission for 16 years.