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Friday, September 26, 2008
What happens when a terminal illness isn’t?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When Cameron Siemers was 7 years old, doctors told him not to expect to live past 10. He recalls the moment vividly here. Siemers was born with hemophilia, a disease that keeps the blood from clotting and is often treated with blood transfusions. He went in for transfusions at age 2. In and out of hospitals after that, he was admitted for pneumonia at age 7 and test results brought a shocking diagnosis. Siemers was infected with HIV. The blood he’d received, five years earlier, had not been tested. But the boy who was given three years to live … lived. His 10th birthday passed. Then his 16th and his 21st. Siemers, now 26, found himself living a future he wasn’t supposed to have. He never planned on college, a career, marriage. He never really worried about that stuff because he wasn’t supposed to live. But, two years ago, he decided he did, indeed, want to live and have a life. Have you or do you know anyone who has outlived a doctor’s prognosis? Tell us about the experience.
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