A difficult dec

is i o n

The story of
Fred

By: Paula Va
lentina Carva
jal Riveros
 Chapter 1 the right materials delivered. His
Normal wife is a nurse in the hospital,
life man, he is 36 years
Fred is a normal lives safe.
old, has a wife Karla and two
children, Andrea and Byron,
beautiful 11 year old twins. He lives
with them in a beautiful house in the
city of Seattle. He has no other
family, because most of them died
in a plane crash, the only one who
was saved was his mother, but 2
But recently Fred began to feel
years later she died of bone cancer.
strange pains in some parts of his
body.
Fred
1 works in a construction 2
company, he is in charge of
managing new projects and getting
 Chapter 2 hospital; they told her that these
New
symptoms
Fred didn't thinks much of it at first,
could be the result of several
believing it was simply because of
diseases so she should bring him in
the stress of his job, which is why
person to make the proper review.
he didn't tell his family about it.
Karla told her husband and they set
the appointment for next Thursday.
Months later Fred noticed that his
pain was getting stronger and
The next day Fred went to work as
stronger, he also had a lot of fatigue
on a normal day but before he could
and his legs felt a little swollen. He
get to his office, he fell down the
told his wife what had happened, at
stairs and this caused him an
first she was angry for not telling
impressive pain, the strange thing 4
him
3 before, but then she told him to
was that his fall had been only 3
calm down and that she was going
steps and this intense pain was not
to consult some doctors at the
 Chapter 3
Options
He was rushed to the nearest
hospital, lives safe, there he met his
wife who was quite scared to see
him so in pain. They treated him
quickly and after several
examinations, the doctor in charge
told him that unfortunately he had
bone cancer on his legs, Fred
immediately remembered the death
of his mother, he told the doctor,
who confirmed that he was one of
the
5 few cases in which this type of
cancer was transmitted genetically.
Fred and Karla were very
concerned and the doctor told them
that they had two options, the first
was to perform an amputation of
their legs, in which the entire tumor
would be extruded and would
prevent it from spreading, and the
other option was conservation
surgery of the limb, in which they
would leave their useful legs and
extrude a large part of the tumor,
the bad thing about this surgery
was that it was much more risky
and due to the advance of the 6
cancer it would be very difficult to
cure it completely.
So now Fred and his wife had to
make a decision.

7 8
 Chapter 4 Once the decision was made, the
Would you
most difficult moments arrived, the
rather
For both Fred and Karla this was a
surgery and how they would tell
very difficult decision since it was
their little children.
to keep their legs and remain ill and
risk dying, or if they live, to heal
and invest in prosthetics for their
legs.

They made a mental list of pros and

cons, and after much thought, they
decided that the best option was
amputation, it was hard, but they
concluded
9 that with this he could 10
live healthy and although it would
be a very hard process, it could keep
 Chapter 5
Surgery
Without the babysitter present, they
told the children about the challenge
that would come, and that in order
to overcome it, they all had to be
united and work as a team. They
also told them that now their dad
would look a little different but that
it was going to help him live as
usual.
The time for surgery arrives, both
the
11 family and Fred's companions
were very worried about him, since
with his beautiful personality
he had won everyone's hearts.
Everything went well in the first
hours of surgery, but there came a
time when, due to a bad reaction to
one of the chemicals that had been
done to him, he stopped breathing,
he almost died, but the doctors
managed to save Fred's life, and a
couple of hours later they declared
the surgery victorious.
12
 Chapter 6 was very difficult for him to
Adapt to a new
perform certain actions, and he still
lifehad gone very well and
The surgery
did not get used to putting on his
Fred a few days later and with the
prostheses every day, his wife and
help of all his family had bought his
children now had to do more things
prostheses. It took several months
for him and help him in many
of treatment to learn how to handle
others, but as time passed,
his new legs but with the help of
everything became the new normal.
Karla, Andrea and Byron,
everything happened faster than
expected.

Everyone's life had changed, Fred

The end
as
13 he was such a good worker they 14
looked for a way to accommodate
his office on the first floor, it
Paula Valentina Carvajal Riveros Contents
Chapter 1 1
Paula is a 13-year-old girl born on
February 29, 2008 in Bogotá Chapter 2 3
Colombia, in the eighth grade at
the Colegio Superior Americano, Chapter 3 5
her dream is to be able to learn
Chapter 4 9
many languages, also to make her
parents proud and thank them for
Chapter 5 11
everything they have done for
her, and for this she is currently Chapter 6 13
working hard to achieve good
academic results and to show Author 15
them how much she loves them
2
15 every day.
 A difficult dec
is i o n

The story of
Fred

By: Paula Va
lentina Carva
jal Riveros