Written, Reported, Shot & Produced by Gabrielle
Published: April 13, 2011You may have seen her around campus – cheering next to you at a baseball game, representing you as president of the Resident Student Association, even sitting behind you in class. This soft-spoken, brown-haired girl looks like any other 21-year-old Cal State Fullerton student, but what sets her apart is her remarkable story.
Laura James has wanted to be a lawyer since she was six years old. She even dressed up as Judge Judy for career day when she was in the third grade. As she showed me her childhood pictures, I noticed something peculiar – the pictures suddenly stopped around seventh grade.
“I burned them,” said James. “I couldn’t bear to look at them.”
She held up a picture of herself dressed in green. She seemed shy, smiling politely for her school’s yearbook.
“This was the last picture taken of me before I was diagnosed with cancer,” James said. “I was 12.”
In 2001, Laura was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow that is expected to take the lives of 910 people this year in California alone, according to the American Cancer Society.
“A man I’d never seen before, my doctor, sat on the edge of my bed, crossed his arms, looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Laura, you have cancer. You’re going to lose all your hair, drop out of school and spend a lot of time in the hospital.’”
After three rounds of chemotherapy, Laura went into remission for two short years. Though she was fighting for her life, she never really grasped the gravity of her situation.
“I didn’t understand what was happening,” James said. “I was so young and I didn’t know what leukemia was. In the beginning I didn’t get sick for a while so I thought it wasn’t all that bad … I thought, ‘This was fine.’ It really doesn’t hit you. I didn’t know what a big deal it was because I was a just a child. It was probably a blessing in disguise.”
At the age of 14, Laura needed a bone marrow transplant – she had relapsed. The cancer came back. Doctors put the teenager through three days of intensive chemotherapy followed by three days of relaxing and three more of radiation. The goal was to rid her body entirely of bone marrow to the point where her blood counts reached zero, meaning she possessed no red or white blood cells. Following that was a four-month hospital stay including five weeks of isolation.
“I was so sick and on so many medications,” James said. “Then I was on more medications to help with the side effects of the initial drugs. I slept through most of it, but when I was awake I just felt like the walls were closing in on me. It definitely made me claustrophobic.”
Although Laura was in isolation, she was never really alone. Her mother, Ruthie James, spent every night in the hospital, never leaving her daughter’s side.
“One year, the whole family moved into the hospital room to wake up together on Christmas morning,” said Ruthie. “I had to do what I could to keep the family intact. I couldn’t sleep. I still don’t sleep well. I haven’t been able to since Laura’s diagnosis.”
Looking around Laura’s apartment, I immediately noticed two things – one, it’s meticulously clean and two, everything is pink.
“Being in isolation for so long made me OCD about things,” James said. “Even though my counts are normal, I’m still a freak about germs.”
An entire shelf was dedicated to her extensive DVD collection, a list of books she planned to read hung on her bedroom wall and an entire corner of the living room was devoted to arts and crafts, revealing her three favorite pastimes – watching television, reading and making cards.
“It’s all I could do,” James said. “It’s all anyone can do when they’re sick. Even if I couldn’t go outside and be an athlete, I could still be creative. Even though my life was on pause, I could still live through movies.”
As of now, Laura is cancer-free, planning to graduate next year and continue on to fulfill her childhood dreams of becoming a lawyer.
The seven-year cancer survivor admits her treatments left their marks, but she isn’t shy about her scars. Her roommate, Valerie Caseria, 20, believes what Laura went through shaped who she is today.
“If she believes in something, she will stand by it firmly with no hesitation,” said Caseria. “She is an extremely strong-willed and determined leader.”
No one can argue against that. Laura is currently a team leader for the upcoming Relay For Life. She’s one of the top fundraisers and plans on making her own thank-you cards for every donor.
Her team name? Pink Hope.
