Emily Mejia was working at a Starbucks drive-thru when her mother and sister arrived to inform her that her 13-year-old sister was cancer-free. Emily was taking down an order from her mother when she found that her sister had been cancer-free, and she burst into tears. Emily’s 13-year-old sister Megan Mejia was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in August 2021 and was treated with CAR-T immunotherapy. Emily Mejia (@emilylorraineee) shared the touching video on TikTok, which quickly went viral. When Emily’s mother and sister drive up beside her, the footage shows her busily working. As her mother lists an order, she is perplexed.
Emily’s mother orders a “latte with a shot of espresso and 2 percent milk,” before casually adding, “one pump of CAR-T and 100 percent cancer-free please.” Emily is taken aback and can’t believe what she’s hearing. “Actually? Is that true? “She asks, again and again, overtaken by passion. In the video, she questions her mother in a high-pitched voice, “You’re going to make me cry, are you serious?” “Oh, my goodness. At work, you’re making me weep. “Before laughing and wiping away her tears, Emily said. Being the sassy woman she is, her mother nonetheless double-checked the coffee order. “However, can I get that latte?”
“Finding out my 13-year-old sister is cancer-free at work @Starbucks #childhoodcancer #cancer # leukemia,” Emily captioned the video. The video has been seen over 23.3 million times and has received 5.5 million likes. Everyone wanted to see Megan when the video went viral, so Emily put her in a video. “I didn’t anticipate the video to become viral; all I expected was for my friends to watch it,” Emily said, rotating the camera to Megan, who waves at the camera. Megan whispers, “Cancer-freeing,” when asked how it feels to be cancer-free. Megan needs a bone marrow transplant, but she must find a good match quickly. The doctors had hoped that one of her siblings would be a match, but it turns out that all three of her siblings are compatible
Positive feedback flooded the comments section. “And now you’re making us cry at work?” one user said, while another added, “This is an incredible moment.” One cancer survivor described how happy they were to find they were cancer-free. “As a cancer survivor, we act as if we don’t care, but when we get that 100 percent remission news, we do care,” they wrote. “Ik [I know] how it feels to hear those words, but I also know that many don’t, which is something that needs to change,” another added. Many people could identify with the struggles of their loved ones. “My heart plummeted when I learned that my 12-year-old sister had a 99 percent chance of beating cancer, but she died as a result of a medical side effect that took her from us. “I’m ecstatic for her,” one person wrote.
