My name is Jeremy Salmen and I have been diagnosed and beat cancer twice.
At 4 years old, I started to feel very weak and had little to no energy. After my parents became worried and had a few tests done, the doctors told my parents that it was just pneumonia. A few weeks later my belly and chest became enlarged. We thought maybe I was just gaining weight. But one day while at chuck e cheese, I didn’t have the strength to even walk. My parents thinking I just didn’t want to leave had to drag me out but after a second they realized something was wrong. At this point, we went back to the hospital and had a few more tests done. The doctors realized that the cloud they were seeing in the x-ray was not pneumonia but in fact a tumor the size of a football wrapped around my organs. Shortly after I was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma and given a 5 percent chance of survival.
The doctors, in so many words, told my parents to just take me to Disneyland and let me live out my last few months happy and not in the hospital. But my parents didn’t give up hope! I remember spending new years of 2000 laying in a hospital bed full of Iv lines and needles in my arms. I remember dreading brushing my teeth because it felt like acid being poured over them, so much so that the nurses had to hold me down. The needles had stopped hurting from being so doped up and drained. My parents would tell me stories of how I had a morphine button next to my bed that i could press when i felt pain and that I would press it in my sleep. At this point, hope was looking scarce.
It wasn’t all bad though. I remember a cookie man would visit me a few times a week and let me pick out any flavor. My favorite was chocolate chips with m&ms. Till this day I wish I knew his name to thank him for making me smile. I also was able to go to a toy room down the hall and pick out whatever I wanted. The little things that don’t seem like much can make the biggest difference. Like seeing my brothers come in and play, or having my parents spend the night in a chair next to my bed holding my hand.
After hundreds of tests, many major surgeries and years of being stuck in the hospital. I made it through into remission and overcoming the odds. But the fight was not over. After leaving, I had to continue coming back in continuing tests to make sure everything was okay and that the cancer had not returned in a different form.
January 2019 I lost my voice for over a week and did not know why. Once more, I begun testing and the results confirmed that the cancer had returned. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Soon after my diagnosis, I had to have two surgeries to remove half my thyroid, testing that, then eventually removing the other half as well. I would now have to be on medication for the rest of my life. Although the survival rate was much higher, it still brought me back to those same thoughts and memories from when I was a child. After the surgeries and some recovery, I beat thyroid cancer as well. I am still going through trial and error to get the right dose of medication and trying to feel normal, but I am happy to be alive!
All my life I’ve been looking for a purpose for why I was saved. Should I be a doctor? Maybe volunteer to help? I believe I’ve found my calling with doing what I love and helping the children and families that are going through it today. I want to make people smile just like the cookie man did for me. I want to see the hopeful faces of the kids that will grow up to tell their own stories. It will all be worth it if my contribution and story helps save one person.
