After her college sweetheart lost his battle against bone cancer in 2017, Caitlin Sebastian left her career in real estate to pursue medicine and is now in her third year of medical school.
“Ryan was playing in a men’s league hockey game and hurt his shoulder. When he went to the doctor, things suddenly got very serious very quickly. He was diagnosed with osteosarcoma.
They did a biopsy, and at that time, the prognosis was really good. We thought this was a sidetrack of our life, but not the end of his by any means.
Every three weeks, he’d get chemotherapy. It was about a year of treatment, and then they did this massive surgery on his arm to remove the tumor and do a bone graft. Two months after his surgery, he had his first set of maintenance scans and we immediately find out that he's going to die because his cancer had spread.
Seconds after finding out the news, we decided it was now or never to have a baby. We had thankfully banked some of his sperm before he started chemo, and I got pregnant with Charles.
Five weeks before Charles was born, Ryan had emergency surgery for a hemothorax. A tumor grew through one of the arteries in his lungs and ripped it open. I wish I remembered how many units of blood he got, I just remember them saying a ton. That would have killed him if he had not gotten blood and he would have just missed the birth of his son.
Charles came early at 34 weeks old, and Ryan died nine days later. The stars kind of aligned for him to meet Charles in that situation. There was a week when we were all patients at the same hospital. Ryan ended up going on hospice there, I was in the postpartum wing, and Charlie was in the NICU.
Ryan got to say bye to all of his fraternity brothers, he got to say bye to his parents and his sister, and if he didn't have those blood products, he wouldn't have. I mean, dozens of people have more peace around Ryan’s death because of that blood.
When he got sick and when he died, I realized I would not be selling real estate if I had cancer. I think that was his legacy, this feeling that I needed something that I would want to keep doing if I was sick.
Six months later, Ryan’s little sister had surgery, and next thing I knew, I was taking care of her at that same hospital that Ryan had been in. I said to her, ‘Man, if I could do it all again, I would maybe go into medicine,’ and she was like, ‘Why can't you just do it? What would that take?’
I did a post-baccalaureate program at Harvard for two years, and then I applied to medical school. Everything that I was doing to build my resume for med school felt incredibly rewarding and I was happy to go to work. I really felt like I'd found my purpose."
We’re honored to share Caitlin's story and hope it inspires you to give blood this holiday season: https://t.co/UprbhEjLCZ #StoriesThatInspire #GiveWithMeaning
25% of our animation cuts have made it all the way to shiage (final color stage)! The other 75% will come in soon after.
Some previews of these cuts will be on the Patreon soon...
Art raffle time!!
This art raffle ends AUGUST 3RD!!!
(If you happen to win the art raffle I will check if you followed the requirements so DONT PLAY 🤫💖)
Comment ur oc and avatar and what theme you’d like :)
(Also if you wonder if I can draw males, yes I can! 💖)
#artraffle
Commission drawn by @Charybat, TYTY SO MUCHH for accepting my request and drawing my oc, she looks so beautiful in your style! 💗💗 GO COMMISSION THEM RIGHT NOW!!!
@kato_myo Ohh it’s ok! Can you send me both prices first, and alert me with the robux comms are open again? I just want to see how much usd/robux I need for future comms :D