This week my son said the cutest thing, he says cute things all the time but this one really stood out to me since it made me tear up. Of course when I cried he turned into his daddy and said "mommy stop crying, you are fine." Anyway, we were driving and had this conversation:
Brayden: "Mommy, why do you have cancer?"
Me: "I don't know doodle bug"
Brayden: "Did you ask Dr. Malpass?" (my oncologist, yes my 5 year old knows my doctors name)
Me: "I did ask him. He doesn't know. He thinks because I am special." (made that part up because my doctor really doesnt know, he calls me his "pediatric patient" since the average age for Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma [PCNSL] is 75)
Brayden: "Mommy, I don't like you having cancer."
Me: "Me either Buddy, but I am ok."
Brayden: "Mommy, do you think God knows why you have cancer?"
Me: "I think so. He is the only one who knows."
Brayden: "When I get to heaven can I ask him?"
Me: "You sure can. I will go to heaven before you though so I can ask and tell you when you get there."
Brayden: "Ok. Can we just go to heaven and ask him right now?"
Me: "Well not until we are old and die."
Brayden: "But Mommy, I can build a rocket ship and we can just ask and come back."
Me (laughing) "Brayden we can't take a rocket ship to heaven"
Brayden: "What about an airplane?"
Kids are amazing. Anyway Brayden continued to come up with many other ways to get to heaven to find out why I have cancer. One included riding fireworks. It was so sweet and so innocent. I love that Brayden thinks cancer sucks, but accepts that it is just part of who I am. Unlike strangers who I meet and then when they find out I have cancer look at me like I have to plague. I just want to yell, I am not contagious!
I have all my own theories why I have cancer such as
* I got PCNSL because I have an old soul, so I have an old person cancer
*I got PCNSL because I worked at deep water horizon and would be covered in oil and breath in the oil that was being burned. The smoke from the oil was so thick that it literally shaded the sun. Oil has cancer connections.
*I got PCNSL because of the stress of getting my masters degree at USC. I was in an intense program and stress can can cause tumor growth. My initial tumor is believed to have started growing in Feb 2013; this was the beginning of my last semester of grad school. I was super stressed to get everything done and my hours of internship completed for graduation. Plus I was the head of planning my 10 year reunion for high school, living in AK when party was in SD. My 10 year reunion was the day after my graduation.
* I got PCNSL because I secretly wanted to stay home with my son and not work full time.
* I had a stroke as an intervention from God, or the other side, because I was having suicidal thoughts. I now know these thoughts were a result of my tumors effecting my chemical balance in my brain, but had I not had a stroke I would not have discovered the tumors and that I have PCNSL
* I got PCNSL because I have lived in constant stress growing up without two parents. Research shows children in single parent homes experience more stress than children from two parent homes.
* I got PSNSL because I was raped leading to toxic memories. Memories are stored in the brain and my brain finally had enough and needed cancer to get the memories out.
Nobody, not even my doctor, can say why I got cancer. Especially a rare form and at such a young age. People tell me to stop diagnosing myself. Who better to diagnose me than myself? I am not saying any of these reasons are my I got cancer but I am saying no one can prove me wrong! I read the book Mind Over Medicine by Lissa Rankin. I highly suggest it to anyone with an illness or just interested in their health and maintaining optimal health. She provides tools for finding insight within ourselves. I believe that understanding ourselves and how we function as an individual is the key to health. I have been "healthy" throughout my cancer treatment and I plan to stay that way. I am stubborn and will not let other peoples ideas of what a person with cancer "should" look and feel effect me. I am happy and I refuse to let cancer or anyone else break my spirit down.
I hope to go to heaven before Brayden, and when I do my first question will be "Why God? Why do we have cancer on earth? " Some say the first think we should do in heaven is thank God for allowing us in, but I doubt God will be surprised that that the first thing I do is fuss at him. I am a pretty good fusser. I fussed at Brandon on our first "date" and I will probably fuss at him today, so I have a long history with fussing and questioning. God knows this and I pray that he will forgive me. It is easier to ask for forgiveness later than permission in the beginning :)
I am curious why do you think you have cancer, or any sickness? Feel free to comment in box below.
Have a great day!!
XOXO
Cancer is a collision of stress, vaccine damage heavy metal toxicity and refined sugar abuse.
ReplyDeleteEvery single human being has cancer cells in their body. Only some bodies are not strong enough to keep the cancer cells at bay. If humans were able to live to be 200 or 300, every single human being would have cancer at some point. I am undergoing treatment currently and I believe my cancer is a way to prove how strong and mature I am for being only 14 to others when I am too shy or scared to show them myself. I believe it also a caused by the fact that cancer deaths run in my family.
DeleteI totally agree! Stress and toxicity in our bodies are what trigger tumor development. I am just curious if people have ideas as to what their stressors or toxicity came from specifically in their lives. Have you read the anti-cancer by David Servan-Schreiber? It is great. It talks about all these issues. I personally believe cancer should be called tumor or something other than cancer since, yes, we all have cancer cells. To me, technically everyone has cancer since we all have cancer cells. Generally a person is not diagnosed with cancer until they have a tumor or there is a detectable amount of cancer cells in their blood. Cancer is so interesting. It sucks, yet it is so amazing how it works and can pretty much take control over our bodies!
DeleteFirst all I love you!!! Thank you for creating this forum! I feel my cancer, is a combination of stress; genetic predisposition and being exposed to the BP oil spill in 2010. NHL-DLBC Stage 3a . In remission, still I hope. Had my 3 month scan yesterday. Depression is a constant and not being well enough to work, while living with my 90 yr. OLD mother isn't helping! I am 61 years old.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading my blog :) I feel like I am just venting so it feels so good to find out I am not alone in my struggles that are cancer related. I too have NHL-DLBC, mine is stage 4 because my tumors are in my brain. My cancer is isolated to my cerebral spinal fluid so my chances of it matastesizing are only 1-5% right now since the tumors have not traveled down my spinal cord. I guess where I am anal and love labels, lucky me, my NHL is more specific and it is called Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma. People often assume I have brain cancer. I do not, I have lymphoma of the brain. I am "lucky" in this weird way because by not having brain cancer where the tumors are made from brain cells and ingrain in the brain, my tumors are made from B-cells and pretty much just push my brain out of the way so they can grow. My stroke was considered non vascular because there was no blood released in my brain. Blood is toxic to the brain so again I feel blessed because I have no neurological damage from my stroke. Just had a little PT and I was back to normal. How was your cancer discovered? My symptom was a stroke, what was your trigger symptom or did you have lots of smaller symptoms?
DeleteI imagine mine came from my super specialness as well. I do not in any way blame myself for having cancer.
ReplyDeleteJust freakin' bad luck as far as I can tell. However, I am grateful for having the lymphoma as if I hadn't they never would have scanned me (PET scan) and they never would have found my pheochromocytoma (a very, very rare adrenal tumor) and THAT could have killed me eventually. So, good for me, I got lymphoma with no symptoms so they could find a rare tumor that also had no symptoms! :-)
ReplyDeleteAren't we so "lucky" to have lymphoma. It is considered the "good" cancer. I freak out on people, no cancer is good cancer!
DeleteChronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), stage 4. Another "old person cancer". I think I was blessed with cancer because I needed someone to point out to be grateful for and even notice the small things. I consider myself blessed because my life seems so much richer now, and I am grateful for every day. I also believe it was genetic. Maternal grandma deceased ovarian cancer. Paternal grandma deceased breast cancer. Mother deceased lung cancer. Father deceased stomach cancer. Maternal Aunt 1 deceased leukemia. Maternal Aunt 2 currently undergoing treatment for CLL. Maternal Uncle deceased lung cancer.
ReplyDeleteI also believe stress plays a big roll as well. A childhood being used as a weapon between two parents that boomeranged between staying married and separation. Being molested by above uncle until I was 7. Being raped by my brother when I was 14, then being stalked by him and put into hiding in a foster home for 2 months until he was arrested. Being date raped at 19. Being cheated on and left by my first husband, then being a single mom of 2 for 7 years while being a restaurant manager...an unbelievably stressful job in it's own right.
But is it stress. Or hereditary? Chance? Combination of all. Knowing won't change the reality, and my reality is I'm here today to talk about it. And sometimes just being here is enough :D
Wow, life has been so stressful for you. I am so grateful you are here to talk about life. What a blessing! Thinking about you
ReplyDelete