“Repunzel Repunzel let down your hair!” Yes, everyone knows the famous fairy tale. Although that is not the story I’m about to tell, both involve girls trapped in towers. However my princess doesn’t have long beautiful hair or a handsome prince waiting at the bottom. In fact my princess is not a princess at all. She is a normal girl who loves music and drawing and playing guitar. The girl is me.

I am 15 years old and I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer a couple months ago. I had a surgery on my neck and now I have to have radioactive iodine. Thankfully, I was lucky and I only needed one dosage of the treatment. I took the pill yesterday and since then and for the next week I am in isolation. I can’t have dinner with my family or come close to anyone. I moved into our apartment and if I need something I have to call so someone can bring it up without coming near me. The reason that I need to distance myself from others is because the iodine is a terrible thing that kills cells. However, in my case it is healing me.

I feel like I am trapped and helpless for escape. It is only the second day and I am already counting down the minutes until its end. I look out the window and I miss people. Whenever one of my siblings come upstairs to give me something I ask them to stay and talk to me from the stairs. Some oblige and some don’t, but they all tell me to stay away and not to come too close. I get tired of watching television and listening to music. Sometimes I draw or play guitar or read but then I look at the clock and see that I still have so many empty hours in the day to fill all by myself.

I wish that life would just pause until I’m done I don’t want to miss anything. I hate not being there when my brother says a funny joke, or when my sister throws a tantrum, or when we all sit down to dinner. Tonight and tomorrow is my Sabbath so I won’t be able to use the computer or my IPod and I will have no one to talk to. To say I am dreading it would be a huge understatement!

However, even if something is hard and it feels like a cage and a prison, in the end you will succeed. Not only will you complete your task you will become a better person because of the pain it took you to get there. The pop star, Kelly Clarkson, understood this message and wrote a song about it which became one of the top hits because of its enormous truth. The song is called what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It actually came out around the same time as my diagnosis and whenever we went to the hospital and we were in the car we would turn the song on really loud to encourage and remind us that this will ultimately end well for me and my family. Life is not easy and sometimes to get to where you want to go you have to put up a fight. In a fight you have armor. Every person has their own shield in this world. My armor is my family and my close friends. They help me as I help them and together we will put up a strong fight!

In conclusion, although I am being isolated I am finding the time to discover and think about things that I never had a chance to think about before because I was so involved in what was happening all around me. I watched a movie about a blind man and it made me think about my current situation. I can’t see people for ten days and a blind person can’t ever see people. They have to adapt to life without the gift of sight. It gave me a whole new perspective on gratitude and how to live a good life. When I am able to go outside and talk to people I will now notice and appreciate beauty and love that I simply overlooked because I was too busy to notice.