Everyone is lead to believe that some of the best told stories start with, 'Once upon a time' but not mine. My story will bring out different emotions, from complexity, sadness, worry, heartbreak, confusion, to happiness, thoughtfulness, healing and love. I guess there are a few things you should know about me first.
My name is Castiel Novak, I'm 22 years old, and I have leukemia.
My childhood was a happy one, average even. I grew up in Lawrence, Kansas with my parents and 2 siblings; Gabriel and Micheal. We always had a loving, caring family that you could count on to be there through everything. My parents were working parents, and sometimes their jobs took them away for periods of time, but they always made it up to us by taking us on family vacations every year. I think my best childhood memory was the summer I turned 9 and we went to Greece. If you have never been, please take it from me, you have to go, you won't be disappointed!
When I was 15 I joined the soccer team, I was so excited. The excitement didn't last long though. Between my school schedule and soccer schedule I was tired all the time and soon started to develop a fever that never seemed to quite go away. My mom took me to the doctor, looks like I was just going through a growth spurt. I took my medicine like a good boy, but it never seemed to work.
After 10 days of being on antibiotics with no improvement, my mom took me back to the doctor. At this point I was losing focus on everything and really didn't want to lose my spot on the team, so I went willingly.
Dr. Mathias had been my primary doctor for as long as I could remember, but he was getting older so when he told me he was concerned about how swollen my lymph nodes were and the weight that I was losing, I just chalked it up with him being cautious. Boy was I wrong.
To make a long story short, I went through lots of test, exams and different doctors until finally I was sat down and told that I had Leukemia. The doctor explained that I was at an intermediate stage and that he wanted to start me off with medicine and see what that did first before he introduced chemo into my regimen.
You always hear of people complaining about their treatment or the treatment centers, but mine was good. Well as good as you can get with it being a cancer facility. Chemotherapy was hard, but the staff was excellent and with the support system I had, it was bearable.
By the time I turned 17, I was going back to living a semi-normal life. I was told there was a 40% chance that my cancer could return, but I was back at playing soccer, going to school and hanging with friends; I wasn't too concerned with those odds.
In hind sight maybe I should have been. The disease showed its ugly face again, but this time it was different. This time it lead me to lead the most wonderful guy by the name of Dean Winchester.
This is our story…