Book Talk

I love to read and have ever since the first time my mother left me in the Kinder section of the public library and I tip-toed over to the 5th grade section and picked my first library book. It was a Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mystery. I grabbed it and snuck back to the kinder section until she came to get me. I got home and started trying to read it. I didn't understand all of the words and kept asking her for help. Eventually she became very frustrated with my constant asking and lovingly bought me a dictionary and showed me how to use it. From that moment on I have almost always had a book with me.

The one book that I would say formed who I am today was a book I read when I was about 11. It was written by Lurlene McDaniel and was called "Six Months to Live". It was about a 13-year-old named Dawn Rochelle who was diagnosed with leukemia. She was very scared. While in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy, Dawn meets Sandy, who also has cancer. Dawn and Sandy battle the disease together, and remain best friends even after they both go into remission and go to cancer camp together. Eventually Sandy succumbs to the illness and Dawn returns to camp the next year and partakes in a ritual to honor the lost friends from the previous year. Reading this book is the first time that I felt that I had a mission in life. I knew from then on that I would be in the medical field and help those in need to have hope.