Cancer entered my life on September 14, 2024, after a high school soccer game, with a word I had never heard before: pelvic rhabdomyosarcoma. Overnight, I became a patient, a diagnosis, a schedule of treatments, and several surgeries. My life split into “before” and “after.” What I did not know then was that I was also becoming a survivor, not just for a season, but for life.

During the months of chemotherapy that followed, everything familiar disappeared. My energy faded. My routines collapsed. My family was devastated. When I looked in the mirror, I no longer looked like myself. I lost my hair, my eyebrows, and my sense of physical strength. At fifteen, when most teenagers are learning independence, I was learning how to endure. It would have been easy to retreat and let illness define me.

Instead, I searched for anchors. I found one in sports.

Every Saturday morning, even when I felt nauseous or exhausted, I insisted on going to my basketball games. I needed that sense of normalcy. On the court, I was not “the kid with cancer.” I was just a teammate. My coach and teammates did not treat me differently. They held me accountable, pushed me, and expected me to show up. When I put on my jersey, I took off my hat. In that moment, I belonged again. My oncologist often reminded me that in cancer treatment, mental strength is at least half the battle, because depression is the most dangerous enemy. For me, sport became that strength. It kept me standing.

That experience reshaped how I see life. I learned that identity is not something illness can take unless you surrender it. I discovered that resilience is not dramatic. It is quiet persistence. It is choosing to show up when it would be easier not to. It is deciding that your future still matters even when your present feels fragile.

During that time, I often thought about a line from the French film La Haine (1995): “So far, so good… what matters isn’t the fall, it’s the landing.”

Cancer was a fall I did not choose. What I could choose was how I landed.

I landed by staying engaged in school and maintaining A+ grades despite missing weeks of class. I landed by returning to sports. I landed by continuing to imagine a future beyond hospital walls. That mindset did not disappear when treatment ended. It became part of who I am.

Today, I no longer measure life only by achievements or speed. I measure it by meaning. I am more attentive to time, to people, to opportunity. I understand that plans can change in an instant, and that is precisely why purpose matters.

This perspective has shaped my future goals.

I want to work at the intersection of sports, international relations, and public impact. Through internships in journalism and geopolitics, including work with WGN Radio during the Paris Olympics and research at think tanks in both France and the United States, I have seen how sport can be more than competition. It can be structure. It can be diplomacy. It can be healing. It can connect people across cultures when words fail. I have also learned, through the medical trials I am part of, how essential international cooperation and research are in the fight against disease.

Because of cancer, I no longer see success as personal advancement alone. I want my work to matter beyond myself. I am drawn to fields where communication, resilience, and human connection are central, whether in sports diplomacy, media, or international organizations that use sport as a bridge rather than a barrier.

Being a survivor means understanding that life will always be uncertain. It also means knowing that uncertainty is not a weakness. It is an invitation to act.

Cancer taught me that the future is never guaranteed. But it also taught me something more powerful: even after the fall, you can choose how you land.

And I intend to land forward.