Mitzi Van Buren, history senior, submitted a letter to The Horizon describing how IU Southeast has helped her in her fight against cancer. This is her letter.
By MITZI VAN BUREN
history senior
mitzi_van_buren@hotmail.com
As a child, we are innocent to the horrors of the world, but then comes real life and the first glimpse of what fear really is.
As I continued down this road of gaining my education, there was one fear I never thought of — the fear of getting sick and facing death.
In the summer of 2008, I was having some problems stacking and carrying boxes at work due to a pain in my shoulder. I put it off, thinking I had torn my rotator cuff.
In December, my son, Dale, and niece, Jaymi, were winterizing the barn for the horses, and I bumped into a rail. The pain was horrible, but as the tears fell, I laughed my way through it.
The children decided it was time for me to get it looked at. It was a Sunday and as luck would have it, the Floyd County Hospital didn’t want to mess with me.
We went out to eat lunch and they called the Clark County Hospital. They said they could get us right in.
Dale and Jaymi had to drag me. I was feeling fine at the time.
When we arrived at Clark Memorial Hospital, they got me to a room, and I told the doctor what was going on.
She said she thought I had injured my rotator cuff, too. She tugged, moved and twisted my arm in a million directions, then sent me for an X-ray.
A few minutes later, she came in with tears about to fall down her cheek, and kept saying she was sorry she moved my arm like that.
She explained I had a malignancy that has eaten my shoulder apart. It was amazing that it was still attached. Then she walked out of the room.
The three of us looked at each other and thought, “Wait, back up. Huh?”
Then a doctor told me that they needed to do blood work and asked me a bunch of questions.
They admitted me immediately and found out I had Multiple Myeloma and gave me five to seven years to live.
My first thought is that finals week is starting.
I thought I don’t have time for this. I was thinking I have to pass my classes and hope and pray to pass my Spanish final.
In my last year of treatments, my sister and I started our “bucket list.” We started by heading west this past summer.
Like any other vacation, there are always hills, mountains and speed bumps to put a kink in the plans. We hit every one of them.
Our seven week vacation turned out to last four weeks when we found out my dad was ill.
When I returned home from vacation, I also had to do a bone marrow biopsy and found out that the chemo did not attack a single cell.
So, in that moment, I found out my dad had weeks to live unless he was a candidate for dialysis, and also that all I have been doing was for nothing.
I am now on an IV chemo that makes me so sick I barely want to get out of bed.
It is like having the flu for almost three weeks.
My body has transformed itself into a mess, and parts of me look and feel disfigured, but I have to face this fear head on.
My goal at IU Southeast was to go to class, make great grades and then move on to get my master’s degree and doctorate, maybe even go to law school.
I was not here to make friends. I just wanted to be invisible and move on in my life, but IU Southeast gave me a wonderful friend and so many fabulous mentors that I could not imagine going anywhere else.
Before I even came to IU Southeast, I decided to go back to school at Ivy Tech. It was a tough decision, but my dad thought it would be the right thing to do.
I was on the Chancellor’s List twice and that made the entire situation better. After being out of school for almost 20 years, I felt pretty smart.
The trouble came when someone told me I had to leave Ivy Tech because I couldn’t focus on a major and my financial aid would not cover me to attend any longer.
More fear crept in.
Ivy Tech was like a long lost friend. The school reminded me of my high school, Eastern High School in Louisville, without their marching band and flag corp.
What was I going to do?
Where was I going to go?
I needed to prove to my children that an education was important, but I didn’t know how to if I was being kicked out of some place I felt so comfortable.
My only option, as chills went down my spine, was IU Southeast.
I called the university.
At the time, I was 38 and scared to face such a huge campus.
Change scares me. Fear of the unknown freaks me out, and here I am, feeling like the oldest student on campus, trying to figure out my life so I can prove something to my children, my dad and eventually myself.
I got all my classes transferred and began a semester as a sophomore, which seemed to last two years before I gained junior status.
I started out as a business major, but I couldn’t handle the college math. Something about using the graphing calculator is way over my head and the poor kids in the Math Lab couldn’t help me at all.
Needless to say, I dropped it.
I decided criminal justice would be interesting. I didn’t need the math, or a foreign language, but I am not big on sports and that was usually the topic of discussion.
During these trials, I took a history class with a professor that had a cool English accent and wore blazers with elbow pads.
There was something about him that was interesting from the start of class.
It was James Beeby, professor of history, and his enthusiasm screamed from the rooftops. He would get so caught up in his lectures it was like being there.
He made it so fun, even when he had to discuss the American Revolution, which the English lost.
Needless to say, he skimmed through that part.
It was fun, interesting, and it had my mind spinning in a million different directions. I stopped by his office one day and he talked to me about my major.
From that meeting, my major changed to history.
I feel it in my blood and my soul, and I owe it all to Beeby.
Although, Yu Shen, professor of history, Kelly Ryan, assistant professor of history, and a great student teacher, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz, all gave me so much inspiration, as well.
I knew that before I got sick, but these wonderful people have become more than just my professors, they are my friends and maybe one day colleagues.
The key is to treat everyone you come in contact with respect. It all pays off in the end.
All my fears of going to a big school were washed away forever as I laid in a hospital bed not knowing what the world holds for me.
I do know that IU Southeast holds my history degree, and, with any luck, I will be walking down that aisle when they call my name in May 2010.
I see a tomorrow. My future may not be so bright, but I still get to wear shades.