Alternative Medicines

My family was crying and I told them, you know, it's OK. You know, the doctor said it's easily treatable. We can you know, we can take care of this. We see it a lot. But they weren't crying for me. They were crying for my aunt. And it was because she had been battling breast cancer and she died at home while receiving chemotherapy treatment. And she was my you know, my references to what happens when you are diagnosed with cancer and you begin treatment. So from the beginning of my journey with cancer, I had no faith in conventional treatments. I didn't believe me. And I think that was a big part of what led me to sort of run away and decide to die from cancer instead of chemotherapy. So at 16, I had been receiving five. I received five treatments. In that time, I watch my health deteriorate. I saw the other children at Dana Farber who were receiving chemotherapy, just living a quality of life that I did not want to live and that I. I left my parents a note saying, I love you guys and I'm really sorry, but I have to I have to leave. I have to run away. There was something in my heart that just said go. And I didn't know anything about alternative medicine. I didn't know there were any people out there, you know, who had other kinds of options. But like I said, I would be okay with letting the cancer kill me and not the chemotherapy. So I took my skateboard. I got on a great home, made it to Texas, Houston, Texas. It was after about 10 days of being and being gone that I actually saw my mother on TV crying. They had no success with a runaway. You know, from the police, the police couldn't do anything. But when someone suggested, you know, your kid has cancer, maybe you should talk to the media. They might get that out there. Well, they picked it up right away. The Associated Press ran a story after that. It was every news channel called. It was on the front page of the paper. Coast to coast, it was everywhere. And, you know, I saw it as I was I made it to Texas, but I wanted to get to California. So that plan changed. That bald teenager with a skateboard probably won't get too far. If everyone's looking for him. So I pulled up, you know, pulled down the hat, pulled up, you know, pulled up the hood and kind of hid out. I hid out for a couple of weeks, and that time