Will I Ever Use This Is Real Life

Mendoza 1
Francesca Mendoza
Eames
Pre-calculus- Block 2
Due: 18 December 2014
When will I ever use this in real life?
Ever since I was six years old I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. I wanted to help people. I was the kid that would watch CSI, NCIS, SVU, and all the other adult shows over cartoons and Disney. I loved them. The idea of going into the world and solving crimes was, and still is, magical to me. The type of shows I liked watching more as a child were medical shows. Anything that had to do with taking care of sick people, and nursing people back to health, I watched. I wanted to be a doctor.
When I was around nine years old, a year-or-so after my great-grandparents died, my family got bad news. My mother and brother, around the same time, had heart problems. My brother, eight, had a heart murmur. While my mother, only 27, was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. A heart murmur is an abnormal rhythm or sound in a person’s heartbeat, usually due to a hole in the heart or a mass. Murmurs can usually be treated with medications that help with heartburn, and irregular beating. Cardiomyopathy, on the other hand, is not easily treatable. Cardiomyopathy is the weakening of the heart muscle, or anything involving the heart muscle. There are three types but my mother was diagnosed with dilated idiopathic cardiomyopathy. Dilated cardiomyopathy is when the left heart ventricle struggles in pumping blood to the body. This type of cardiomyopathy is usually idiopathic, meaning the cause of the disease, is unknown.

Mendoza 2

Having to experience all that came with these illnesses at a young age, my perspective on life changed. My mother was young when she was diagnosed, and she surpassed the time they thought she would live. My brother’s murmur went away with the medication and now only affects him when he is doing rigorous physical work. All I’ve wanted since watching my mother and brother struggle with the problems they have, is to help others who...