On August 1st of 1996 I was born, the first fourteen years of my life were like any other kids. But on August 1st of 2011 , I found out I had acute myeloid leukemia, or in other words cancer. The form of cancer I had was very rare. Only about 60 people in the world had ever had it. Most of those cases were in adults. To see a child with this form of acute myeloid leukemia was extremely rare, almost unheard of. It all started when I was in the small town of Alpena Michigan. Every year my family goes to Alpena to stay at our trailer. We were going to be staying in Alpena for about a month. My father and brother could only stay the first two weeks, then they had to go back home to work. The first week and a half we were in Alpena, I had got very sore neck. My parents thought nothing of it. For I would have the air condition pointed straight at my head when I slept. After a few days of having the sore neck, I was in so much pain, that my parents took me to the emergency room to see what was wrong with my neck. I was in the emergency room for about six hours. In those six hours, I had my blood taken, and the doctor came in to examine me. Right off the bat, the doctor thought I had mono. He wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic. The very next day, my sore neck was gone! I thought that the antibiotics were working. A few days after the trip to the emergency room, the hospital phoned my mother. They asked if I had ever had leukemia or any other type of cancer before in my life. My mother said no, and that I was one of the healthiest kids ever! I rarely missed a day of school. After that, they asked my mother to bring me to the hospital again for another blood test. This test was to make sure that the first blood test wasn’t contaminated somehow. This blood sample was going to be sent off to the mayo clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. There they could study the sample more in depth then they could at the hospital in Alpena. On my birthday, my doctor in Holland phoned my mother. He told her the worst news anyone could get. That I had cancer, and I needed to get to Helen Devos Children’s hospital as soon as I possible. When the doctor phoned I was asleep. I woke to the sound of my mother and sister crying. I asked them what was wrong. My mother told me that I had cancer. I don’t remember really what went on after she told, all I remember is that my mother phoned my father. At that time, my father was back at home working. He came back up on the august 2nd. We packed all of august 3rd to get ready to go to Helen Devos children’s hospital on the 4th. On august 4th we woke up at 3:00am so we could get to Helen devos children’s hospital at 9:00am. I couldn’t get or drink anything at all because I was going to have bone marrow biopsy and have a broviac line put it to my chest.