Part 3
"Happy Birthday"

"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy birthday dear Cliff, Happy birthday to you!"

(...and many more........?)

Since I had just worked the night shift at PLU, I slept in on Sunday, missing church. I had trouble sleeping that night. Here I was, 20 years old, and I have cancer. What did I do to deserve this? Is this some kind of sign? What if I die? These and other questions passed though my mind that night. When I woke up I started to get ready for the big party. This was my last day to have a normal life. On Monday, the "fun" would begin.

Since I hadn't been hungry lately, my mom and dad tried to get me to eat by making me all of my favorite party food. We had chocolate cake, BBQ chicken, and hamburgers. Yummy! To bad I couldn't eat it. It seemed like everyone came to my birthday. Even my cousins, who usually don't make it to my birthdays, came this time. I guess they were paying their respect to me. Everyone was having a good time and pretended like nothing was wrong. But I could get the feeling that everyone had things running through their heads. I sat down with my plate of food at the picnic table. All of my friends were sitting there. I started to eat my hotdog. All of a sudden I felt really sick. I held the partially chewed food into my mouth and went inside the house. When I got in I spit the chewed up hotdog in the garbage can. All I wanted to do was have a normal birthday. Come on Cliff! Eat! I grabbed a big piece of chocolate cake and went into my room to eat it by myself. I took a big bite and started to chew. The sickness came again. I felt like I was going to throw up. I spit the cake onto my plate and tried to hold in the throw up. I never did throw up but dry heaved a lot. I guess my mom knew that something was wrong because she came into my room and asked, "What's wrong?" "I can't eat anything." She looked at me like she wished she could take away all of the pain and put it on herself. "I'm sorry", she said. I went back out to the party after I had finished dry heaving and tried to have a good time. We played a game of Trivial Pursuit in which my Uncle Wolf and friend Aaron Hoffman teamed up and beat about 10 of my friends and I. After the party was over I settled down. I went to bed early that night. Tomorrow was going to be a big day. Tomorrow I start my tests.

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