I was 11 when they finally admitted I was sick. I'd known for over a year, but no one really believed me. I remember hearing doctors tell my mother that I was having psychological "issues" and that therapy was where I should be. Basically I had a whole lot of people telling me I was crazy; because I couldn't quite explain what was wrong and after a long time I just quit trying.

Anyway...after a year and a half they found it. A tumor the size of an orange lodged in my brain and all the damage it had done. I think I was angry for about half an hour; and then some of the most amazing people I have ever met came into the picture. While I don't remember all of their names, I will always remember their kindness.

First there was the doctor who did the cat scan and had to tell us what she found. She had the kindest voice and hugged my mother as she told her. She sat in the little room with me while my mom and brother went home to pack my things to go to the hospital in Toronto. She explained everything to ome in terms that an 11 year old kid would easily understand.

Then there was the pilot on the air ambulance. He had to deal with a terrified kid who thought she was gonna die (who had never flown before) and a mother who had been a nurse all her life but who was trying to hold it together so much she was gonna burst. We were flying through a huge storm so he turned off the cabin lights so I could see the lightning from my stretcher and talked to my mom the whole time about the people he had transported over the years.

I am pretty sure he was just trying to make her feel better but he said that in the five years he had been doing that job, he had never heard of one ofo the kids he'd transported dying. Like I said, he was probably stretching the truth a little, but I think it made my mom feel a lot better.

After that I was at sick kids hospital in Toronto. Really I could talk for days about how amazing the people there were. My neurosurgeon spoke to ME before my parents, they let me call the shots as much as possible. The nurses let my mom do as much as possible for me because she was a nurse and on Easter Sunday every kid in that hospital woke up to a basket full of treats catering to what each kid could and could not have.

Everyone from the nurses to the o.r and recovery staff to the doctors to the other families in there were amazing. the 12 hours that I was in surgery my mother was in the waiting room and for every minute of that 12 hours there was another parent waiting with her...not because they had to but because they wanted to, because they knew what she was going through.

My mother said that when the doctor came to get her when he was done, he put his arms around her and told her I was okay...that I would be okay...he let her cry on him for a good 10 minutes...

I've seen a lot of doctors in my life, but never once have I seen one so compassionate as mine, never have I met nurses so dedicated to their jobs and their patients.

Maybe it is a special kind of person who can work daily with sick and terminal children, or maybe I was just lucky. But ya gotta think that if I ended up with so many amazing people looking after just me, then there has to be a whole slew more of them floating around out there.