Paul S. Bodner introduces

The Next Book in The Lemonade Series

Living with Love, Laughter & Lemonade

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It's All About Love
by Winning Author Brandi Henkes

In almost every normal teenagers life they have a story to tell. In my case my story is a little unusual, it's a miracle.

My freshman year started out going great. Varsity cheerleader, new friends, and a great boyfriend. Regular everyday life for a teenager, right? Well in January I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma Cancer. I was shocked as you can imagine. My family was devastated. I can still remember the night I found out, and how my mother threw her arms around me as I started to cry. How can this happen to me I thought? What did I do to deserve this? All the doctors could tell us was that we needed to start intense chemotherapy treatments as soon as possible.

Doing what we had to do we showed up the following week ready for anything. The doctor told me there were going to be some serious side effects from the medicine. The first thing was hair loss. This was very difficult for me. I thought to myself, I will be ugly and weird. What was I going to say to my friends and my boy friend? Nobody will want to be my friend anymore. There was no way of getting around it. At school I began to tell everyone the news. The whole school seemed as if they were at a funeral. I tried to be strong for them but everyone was in tears. Slowly as time passed all my hair began to fall out. I wore a pink pig tailed hat for the next three months. Trying to keep up with my old life I continued to show up to cheerleading practice when my energy level was close to normal, which was very seldom. One day my cheerleading captain, who was a very close friend of mine, asked me to join her and my seven other team mates at her house. Feeling well, I was excited to have a night of normalcy.

Once I arrived, there in the middle of the floor sat one electric razor and eight cheerleaders. Curious to find out what was going on, I asked, what are you doing? The response was "We want you to shave our heads!" I could not believe what I heard. All they could say is "We are your friends, we want to support you and you're not going to be the only bald cheerleader." So we all held our breath and I shaved every single one of their heads. It was an exciting night, as you can imagine.

One month later they went to cheer for our basketball players at the state championship-all bald. It made me so proud. Seeing what courage and love we shared brings me happiness every day of my life. Now three years in remission, I have a new meaning for my life: it is to share my story with love and courage. To let everyone know that no matter what you may be going through, there are people that love you.

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