I hate brunch. There is no logical reason to wait longer than needed to dive into your weekly pile o’ pancakes, heap of hash browns, and plate full of bacon. Besides heart disease that is.

One thing cancer has taught me is to have patience. There are long waiting periods being things like testing and treatment cycles and long winded, carefully worded monologues by the cancer center staff. Eventually I learned how to play tic-tac-toe in my head.

Not really, but that would be cool.

Being a student at a private, Catholic high school means performing at my top level everyday. There is little room for error when the sole purpose for this school is to send me to a better, more expensive school known as college. I would have never imagined I could wake up in the morning only to hear my father throwing his breakfast up and then take a Honors American Lit. exam mere hours later.

I had to learn how to be patient with the process because I have a life outside of all this cancer nonsense. I am to go to school and attend football games and post artsy instagram pictures, all with a smile. I could not do anything more than the doctors are already doing if I stayed home all the time. He would still be sick and I would be miserable.

So maybe cancer is a lot like Sunday brunch. Nobody wants to wait, but there is always a light, or pancake, at the end of the tunnel.