Mustafa hassan

My wild cancer journey

My name is mustafa growing up in the beautiful city of Oakland California, and here is my story. I was a hard working 18 year old going to school and working at my brothers metro store 30 hours a week. Nothing was stopping me as long as I had me redbull every morning and vape during the day, until one day I had a very bad head ache and was throwing up. I thought I might have been food poisoned. This was going on for two weeks straight. I went to the ER 3 times and all they would do is send me home with zofran and Ibuprofen. I decided to go to Disney land in LA because I thought I needed a change of scenery. After that trip I had felt worse, so my oldest sister Asia took me to the emergency room one last time and made sure they did an mri scan on my head and stomach. Come to find out one hour later that I had tumor in the back of my head. When the doctors told us the results I wasn’t scared I just wanted to know if there was a way that they can just make me feel better. All I remember was a bunch of my family members came to the hospital to visit me. Later on that day the hospital I was in Oakland transferred me to Redwood City to do the surgery. After the surgery I thought I was in the clear but the doctors told my family and I that I was have to do radiation and 1 year of chemotherapy. I started to panic and get real depressed because I remember what my mom went through when she had cancer. I had 2 month to prepare my self for chemotherapy and radiation. All I did within those 2 months was eat healthy and go visit nice views. When I started my chemo and radiation treatment they prescribed me opioids anti depressants and so on. Two months in I was addicted to the opioids and the doctors stopped prescribing it to me. I felt so terrible to the point I started buying them off the streets. I would spend almost a thousand dollars a month on opioids to feed my addiction. This went for eight months straight. The addiction was so bad that I used to cry and pray that I would get help with out disappointing my family and having them find out. I was until 1 day I was going through my last chemo treatment and I was asleep in the hospital. I got up to use the bathroom and the pills had spilt out my pockets. My sister Asia was there and the nurse walked in and they seen them spill out my pocket. I was so shocked I had passed for a whole day. While I was passed out they had drained my body with a bunch of fluids and it helped detox away all the narcos that was in my body. My dad, Omar my brother and sister Asia were all in the hospital room when I woke up and they were explaining to me how they weren’t disappointed and I finally had some closure. That was the last day of me fighting cancer and an opioid addiction. Now I am back living a normal life working with my brother Omar again.