Childhood Cancer Awareness Month Hero
Childhood Cancer Awareness Month Hero
joeleen lopez
joeleen lopez
Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL)
Patient
Joeleen before the diagnosis was a very fun and happy girl. She likes to spend time with family. She really enjoyed it when summer came so she could go camping. She liked swimming a lot, she never got tired of being in the water. She likes pets. she was a girl with a lot of energy. During the winter she liked to enjoy the snow in the mountains.
She went to a cheer program with her sister, she likes school and always talks about wanting to go to college and graduate.
She was diagnosed with Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) on February 7, 2022 and relapsed at the end of February 2023. There have been ups and downs but she continues to fight like a warrior.
Before the diagnosis, we noticed she was having night sweats, she was tired, very thirsty and not very hungry. I thought she was normal because of her age but a few days later she started with a rash on her skin and bruises.
Her diagnosis meant she could no longer go to school, she could not continue with her cheer activities. This was something that she resented a lot since at her age everything important in her life fell apart from not being able to go outdoors, to not being able to go to school and be with her friends the first few months. She was quite discouraged, She cried a lot. It was very emotional and affected all of us. Her brothers had to stay in the care of other people, something they were not used to since they had never done it. We couldn’t go places anymore, we had to isolate. But as time went by we tried as a family to spend time together and try to get her to see that with time she could go back to enjoying all those things again.
– Laura Zazueta, mother
