Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Light The Night
I'm going to be in a walk for childhood cancer. I'm trying to get donations and things like that. Just wanted to post the basic stuff :)
Monday, May 16, 2011
His Purple Heart
I will never forget,
That day,
The day they arrived,
Their dress whites blinding in the sun.
The warm summer air,
Suddenly so very cold,
Leaving it hard to breathe,
This can’t be happening.
“Mom!”
The voice sounded so strange,
It had been me, but it didn’t sound like me,
It sounded like someone else.
My heart,
Slammed in my chest,
They were closer now,
But still so far away.
“No”,
Mother’s voice breathed,
She was next to me,
When did she get there?
“Misses Jones?”
He was holding something,
“Yes?”
She sounded hoarse.
“I’m very sorry”,
The rest I didn’t hear,
Blood roared through my ears,
No. God no!
My mother was on the ground,
Crumpled like a limp rag doll,
I could see her sobs,
But I couldn’t hear them.
I knew then what had happened,
He was dead,
My little brother,
He was gone.
I would never,
See his smile again,
Hear his goofy laugh,
Or see his funny dances.
We’ll never have those,
Late night talks,
Those stupid fights,
Or dance like idiots together.
The officer handed her a velvet box,
Inside was a purple heart,
My brother had saved an entire platoon,
He gave his life for them.
The excruciating pain,
My heart was slowly being crushed,
I was dying,
The pain was unbearable.
I watched as the officers retreated,
Back to the black car,
The other had yelled back,
“He was my best friend”.
He was my best friend too,
My mind responded,
He was my best friend too,
And now he’s never coming back home.
All of a sudden,
It was pitch black outside,
Where had the time gone?
Mom and I died a little that day.
He was like a big brother,
Always there for me,
Now he’s gone,
It should have been me.
That day,
The day they arrived,
Their dress whites blinding in the sun.
The warm summer air,
Suddenly so very cold,
Leaving it hard to breathe,
This can’t be happening.
“Mom!”
The voice sounded so strange,
It had been me, but it didn’t sound like me,
It sounded like someone else.
My heart,
Slammed in my chest,
They were closer now,
But still so far away.
“No”,
Mother’s voice breathed,
She was next to me,
When did she get there?
“Misses Jones?”
He was holding something,
“Yes?”
She sounded hoarse.
“I’m very sorry”,
The rest I didn’t hear,
Blood roared through my ears,
No. God no!
My mother was on the ground,
Crumpled like a limp rag doll,
I could see her sobs,
But I couldn’t hear them.
I knew then what had happened,
He was dead,
My little brother,
He was gone.
I would never,
See his smile again,
Hear his goofy laugh,
Or see his funny dances.
We’ll never have those,
Late night talks,
Those stupid fights,
Or dance like idiots together.
The officer handed her a velvet box,
Inside was a purple heart,
My brother had saved an entire platoon,
He gave his life for them.
The excruciating pain,
My heart was slowly being crushed,
I was dying,
The pain was unbearable.
I watched as the officers retreated,
Back to the black car,
The other had yelled back,
“He was my best friend”.
He was my best friend too,
My mind responded,
He was my best friend too,
And now he’s never coming back home.
All of a sudden,
It was pitch black outside,
Where had the time gone?
Mom and I died a little that day.
He was like a big brother,
Always there for me,
Now he’s gone,
It should have been me.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Cancer
I know I haven't posted in a long time, but this is something I've been working on for awhile. It feels strange that it's finished and I really don't know why I'm sharing it, but none the less I am. Be prepared, it's long.
Cancer
You know the interesting thing about having cancer? You have PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), you become basically magnetic, you learn to see things differently, and of course you have to live with it for the rest of your life. Obviously cancer is complicated, if you’ve experienced it you know firsthand, and if you know someone going through it you see how the complications affect us which affects you emotionally. I’ve seen how knowing someone with cancer affects people, does that mean when someone comes up to me and says they understand how hard it is that I actually believe them? If they’ve had cancer or are going through it themselves, then yeah I do and I will swap stories with them and give advice where I think it is needed. When they haven’t, but they know someone who has I sort of understand where they are coming from but I’m still pretty skeptical. How does someone who has never been through something like cancer tells me they understand how it is to go through it? They can say they understand how hard it seems or that they hope my family and friends are holding up, because they’ve been in that situation. Now when someone who has never had cancer comes up to me and tells me they understand how hard it was I start to get a little peeved on the inside, especially when they start to compare something that is nowhere near the same. Look, don’t get me wrong I always appreciate the gesture no matter how much I don’t want to talk about it. Now there is that group of individuals who say they understand being a child going through horrible diseases, major life changing surgeries, and other things similar to those. Those people I really do not like talking to. It is not at all because I don’t appreciate what they are trying to do or that they really can relate. It is the fact that they had that horrible disease or major surgery. I hate hearing about children going through awful things. It makes me so unbearably sick to my stomach, anxious and just makes me want to cry. It brings back so many memories, ones that I normally don’t want to think about.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
I’m sure you’re wondering what I mean by you experience PTSD, or maybe you have a bit of an idea. Not only do you experience flashbacks, you also wake up with nightmares about being in the hospital, and well you’re just straight up traumatized. Obviously most PTSD is associated with war veterans which makes very much sense. Of course there are also people who get it from disasters, assaults and even accidents. So, it is not completely impossible for someone who went through something like cancer to get it.
Let’s start with the flashbacks. I asked someone when they heard flashbacks, what they thought of. They told me what they thought of was those weird dream like sequences that are in movies or television shows. Well that just surprised me; here I thought they would have said something about war veterans. Anyways, when I hear flashbacks I see different crappy things I’ve gone through, most of the time I go back to when I was in the hospital.
Example: I remember being jostled awake as I was transferred to a gurney. I was searching around in a panic looking for one of my parents. No one was there and I was six and I was terrified. I had no idea what was going on. A nurse was holding pressure on my chest which made it hard to breathe sometimes. We came flying out of my dark room into the extremely bright hallway lights. Nurses were yelling for people to get out of the way. A doctor pushed through the nurses, finally someone I recognized. He gave me a smile, “Are you ok?” I could feel my eyes tearing up. I knew I was going to cry. What was going on! “It’s ok,” he said. He looked at one of the nurses. “Where’s her parents.” “Her father should be here soon, it’s about the time he normally comes in.” My dad, where is my dad. I want my dad! I started crying. I fell apart, who could blame me. I was a six year old who had been torn from her bed while she was asleep. “Aww. Sweety. It’s ok. Everything is going to be ok.” I just cried harder. “We have to get her to calm down; she’s going to make it worse.” We turned another corner and there he was running towards me in his work suit. “Daddy!” I lost it. As soon as I saw him I lost it. He grabbed my hand and I knew everything would be ok. I have no idea what he was talking to the nurses and doctor about. I couldn’t hear them over my crying and holding onto his hand so tight.
That was one of the scariest things that I can remember from having cancer. I was six and I was terrified. I relied on my parents to be there for me, and I felt special because I had my parents. Not all of the kids at the hospital did. Not all of my flash backs were like that. I have a few that aren’t as scary. There is one that I still have from when I had to get a spinal tap. The funny thing about it is that I’m not supposed to remember it. Even now when I see my doctors they are astonished that I did. I remember my laying on the table curled up in the fetal position. My mom was in front of me and I was telling her that it hurt. I kept telling her I didn’t want to be there, I wanted to go back to my room. I remember the doctor telling me to curl up more and to hold it. Then it really started to hurt. I started to cry a little and my mom was trying to distract me. She was asking me about what type of posters I wanted to hang up in my room with different family members on it and what I wanted it to say under each picture. I remember how much it hurt in a very strange way and my mom repeating questions over and over to me to distract me. After all of that, I remember waking up in my room in my hospital bed.
It’s interesting what you remember after big things happen to you. It seems that many of my flash back cancer memories were sad. However, they all weren’t. I remember running around my hospital room with my little brother while eating McDonalds. I do have a very good memory though. It makes me cry sometimes, but in a good way. It was probably one of the happiest days I had while I was in the hospital.
My older brother is extremely important to me. I don’t know why, because I love all of my siblings very much. When I used to hear that my older brother and sister might be coming to see me in the hospital I was so excited. I would ask the nurses if I could have the Sega Castle (a Sega consol in a plastic castle that was mobile with a TV). I would bounce on my bed in a seated position waiting for them to walk through the door, but he wasn’t there. That happened many times and every time I would be disappointed and hurt. So, I stopped asking for it. What was the point of trying to get something to entertain my brother if he wasn’t going to be there? One Saturday, I was sitting on my bed watching the television and my mom came in with my little brother and my sister. A couple minutes after they had walked in, my brother came through the door. I almost jumped off the bed and ran to him. I was so excited to see him. My dad had to grab me so I wouldn’t rip my central line out. He was very cautious when he came towards me. When he finally hugged me, I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed as hard as I could. The harder I squeezed him the more firm of a huge he gave me trying not to bruise me (having a low white blood cell count made me bruise easily). I remember freaking out about trying to get the Sega castle so we could play it. We didn’t get it, but we had a lot of fun coloring, talking and playing board games we got from the play area. I was extremely happy that day.
Nightmares, that’s another thing that comes with PTSD. Oh the nightmares. I remember waking up sweating and in a panic. Not only would this happen while I was in the hospital, but also when I was finally home again. The nightmares I had where normally my first flashback. I did have other ones though. Every time my older sister was over she would hear me wake up at night and sometimes she would go and get our mom or my dad (we had the same mom different dad). Some of my dreams that involved the hospital were quite traumatic.
Example: It was very dark and I could hear the beep of my IV (Intravenous). I opened my eyes to an almost invisible room because of the curtains being closed, except for a sliver of light streaming through them. All of a sudden my chest started to hurt as if someone was sitting on my chest. I knew my dad was not far sleeping because of the curtains still being closed. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. The pressure was getting heavier and heavier, I couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t anyone hear me? Even though I couldn’t scream I had to have been making noises. The pain made me try and curl into a little ball but I was strapped to the bed. I laid back flat and mustered the last bit of breath I could get. I put all of it into a scream. At first nothing came out and finally I started to scream.
My scream in that dream actually was what pulled me out of the dream. You know how TV shows have people who wake up from dreams screaming and in a sweat? Well that was basically my dream, and it wasn’t like I thought I had screamed. I really had. I woke my sister up and freaked her out. That’s the bad thing about sharing rooms with your siblings, when your little sister wakes up screaming from a nightmare you get woken up by her scream too. Many people had to deal with my nightmares, but it made me feel better when my roommate would wake up from them too.
The thing about nightmares is that many people have them. It’s not like there is just a small amount of people who have them. I still have nightmares, just when I was little I would have a lot of reoccurring ones. Many of the ones I would have involved my parents being eaten murdered or kidnapped. I would wake up many times crying and wanting my mom. Who can really blame me though? Those were horrible dreams. It was even worse when my parents didn’t hear my screaming for them, so I would actually think something did happen to them and like most little kids I would come flying down the stairs into their room. I was going through or had just survived a very serious disease that was almost a slim to none type of cancer for someone my age to have.
I used to have one dream that started while I was in the hospital and that I kept having until I was about ten years old. My family (my mom, my dad, my brothers, my sister, and I) and my aunts family (my aunt, my uncle, my two guy cousins, and my girl cousin) were walking across a railroad track that was above a cove. The train started coming towards us and all of the adults in our group told us to jump, so we did. When we hit the water the whole situation became extremely crazy. My mom and dad were yelling at my older brother and sister to get my younger brother and me out of the water as fast as possible. My aunt and uncle were yelling something similar at their children. We started swimming as fast as we could towards shore. All I could here was them yelling and the water rushing past me started to drown them out. When we got to shore I looked back at the water and all I saw was water that was slightly tinged red. Where were my mom and dad? How come they hadn’t fallowed us? Before I could ask anything I was being dragged up towards this very strange puzzle like house. It had a small curved suspended walkway that looked over a waterfall. We went into the house and there was no one inside. My older brother thought this would be a good place to stay for now. We ended up being there for weeks. One day my brother tripped and fell down the stairs. When he hit the bottom of them he would start at the top and fall down them again. He never stopped. One of my guy cousins walked into a room and disappeared. The other one tripped and fell through the floor. I never saw them again. My sister walked on the walkway that looked over the waterfall. The water looked as if it never stopped, so she leaned forward to see if it ever did. She slipped and fell with the waterfall forever. There wasn’t a bottom. My female cousin just disappeared one day. I have no idea where she went. My little brother was the only person who was with me after that. We ended up finding out that my parents had been killed by something in the water. Apparently my brother had been making what he called a Captains Log. It told us everything. The dream ended with my brother and I holding the log curled up in a little ball in the corner of the room we had found it in, crying.
The very last time I had that dream it changed for the first time in four years. There was a knock at the door. A UPS person was delivering a package to us and the delivery person ended up being my mom. She took us home. It was interesting how the further away I got from having cancer the more my dreams changed. All of my dreams I had when I had cancer and the dreams I had after I had it were normally nightmares. It makes sense though if you think about it, a child having nightmares while dealing with a traumatic disease/event.
Oh the trauma that comes along with cancer. It’s there, it really is. Needles. For me needles are a great example. I had so many needles when I had cancer that I hate them. I hate looking at them, I hate seeing them, and I hate being stuck by them. Well the last thing many people don’t like. Hospitals make me very nervous. They make me panicky and I always think the worst when it comes to anything that has to do with them. There’s also that panic in the back of your head that it will come back. No matter how many times you’re told it won’t and that if it was going to it would have comeback within a year. Every time I go to the hospital, especially with abdominal pain it is the first thing that pops into my head. Cancer. What if it’s cancer again? No matter how many times I’m told it’s not possible, the thought is still burned into my brain. The other thing that really bothers me probably more than anything because of what I went through is hearing about children that are going through diseases, and any other horrible things. Like I said before they make me so unbearably sick to my stomach, anxious and just makes me want to cry. It’s not that I don’t feel for them or understand what some of them are going through. It just brings up my PTSD so to say. Why do people want to watch shows about horrible things that are happening to children anyways? It’s like watching someone die in front of you and going “Awww wow that’s so sad. Oh this is getting boring,” changes channel, “There we go. I’ll go back to that in a few minutes. This looks interesting.” How horrible is that. I don’t want to watch more children slowly die. I already saw children doing that, and some of them were my friends. Having one of your good friends die is indescribable. The whole time I see those videos, shows, and hear those stories it just makes me wonder why me. Why am I the little kid that made it through everything? I had everything working against me and somehow I’m the kid that managed to live. What made me so special that I was allowed to live and not one of my friends. It is one of the most horrible feelings that I have ever experienced. Almost every day, especially days where I have to have another surgery, still recovering, or I’m ill, I wonder why I’m alive. Why didn’t I die? It never helps when people say I bring them all of this hope for their lives. Hopefully one day I’ll figure it out and maybe then I won’t be traumatized when I see children who are going through diseases, and who are going through other horrible things.
I’m Magnetic
No it’s not a super power
I have met so many people who have or had cancer that sometimes I think I have a sign on me that says, “Hey! Over here! Talk to me if you’ve had cancer!” Ok, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind talking to people who are going or had gone through cancer. It’s just when I get 10 people in one day that I start thinking about how to burn the sign I might have on me somewhere. I don’t just get those people; I also get the cancer haters. Those are an interesting group of people.
I want to start with people who are going through cancer or had it. One of the things I always seem to get when I’m talking to people going through cancer is that I’m a miracle to them. I get it almost every time and every time I wonder how in the world do they think I’m a miracle. I mean yeah, I did survive it and at a young age but I guess because of those factors that having cancer just doesn’t seem like a big deal. I’ve been asked quite a lot how do I have all of these conversations? Do I really meet that many people who have had cancer? Well yeah, actually I do. I have probably met most of them while working at my guest relations job, where people come in for services such as massages, facials, hair services, and nail services.
I started having people tell me they were going through cancer during the breast cancer awareness month we were having at work. It started with this lady; she was the nicest lady I had met all day. She and her friend were coming in for a massage and a facial, and since she was currently going through treatment she was not allowed to have a massage, so her and her friend had to switch services. Well while I was taking her and her friend back they were sort of ranting about how they couldn’t have the services they had been planning on. I piped in and explained to the lady how it would be a bad idea not only because it was easier for her to bruise since her white blood count was lower than a normal person and because she wouldn’t want toxins being released from her glands with everything else going on. She just sort of looked at me for a few minutes and then said, “How in the world did you know that?” I smiled and told her about how I had had cancer when I was six. She got the biggest smile on her face and gave me a huge hug. She told me I gave her hope and about how scared she was. I told her everything was going to be ok. I told her if I could do it, she could do it too. She asked me what I had and I told her and about how I had done research on it and how it had said that someone my age shouldn’t have been able to have that cancer. She kept asking more about my cancer and what had happened. She started telling me about her breast cancer and everything that she was going through. I was able to relate to her and she told me that she was so happy to have someone she could talk to that understood how she felt. I had to say that it was a really good feeling talking to someone about it that understood and that I was able to make someone going through cancer feel better.
After awhile though, you kind of get sick of that magnetic pull. You really just don’t want to talk about it anymore. People start to see you as something you think you’re not. I’ve had people dislike me because I’ve had it and I’ve had people think I was some amazing person to make it through cancer. I was six years old; it is a part of me that is so far away at this point I don’t see why it has such an impact on people now. It’s not like I had a play book on how to get through it, I just sort of did.
Open Your Eyes
And Take a Look Around
One thing that cancer did give me was the ability to see things a little differently. There was a period in my life where everything to me was negative, but then that changed. Now I have a tendency to see the silver lining. Now, I’m not saying always because that would just be a straight out lie. I don’t know anyone who is able to see the bright side all the time.
It’s interesting though how I worry so much. I actually found out from the hospital I was treated at that excessive worrying is very normal for child cancer patients and survivors. It has to do with how much we care about everything. Everything is important even the little things. Sometimes it might not show how upset we are, it’s pretty normal for us to be emotional about things. A good example of this was a guy I met at camp on year. This was a camp for children with cancer. He came across like the big guy on campus. Everyone loved and hated him. He had a very crude sense of humor. Anything he could make sexual, he did. Well I was sitting on a very large rock with him and another girl watching the soccer game. They were bickering like no bodies business. I eventually got fed up and told them they argued like an old married couple. If they had dishes, I could have seen them throwing them around like in a cartoon. They both looked at me absolutely baffled until the girl looked at me and asked how I knew they had dated. I honestly didn’t know they had been dating, but I picked up on a vibe. I shrugged and said it was the way they interacted that gave it away. Well later on when everyone was hanging out, he stopped me on my way back from the bathroom. He completely fell apart on me and told me the whole story about him and that girl. When I asked him why he wanted to talk to me about this, he said that he just got a feeling like I could help. I laughed and then told him to keep talking. At the end of the conversation he hugged me and told me thank you. On our way back to meet up with everyone else I asked him why he put up such a front to everyone, his response hurt my heart. He said he worried about his father thinking her was weak, so he acted like he was to good for everything that way no one would know who he really was.
The interesting thing about that moment was it showed how emotional we both are and also how worrisome we are. He told me later that he had a little brother that had never been sick his whole life, so he was tough in a different way. It was a type of tough his father was proud of. I understand that feeling because I was the only one of four kids that had anything really medically wrong with them. Even to this day I’m having some issues. I always, even now, worry that if I wasn’t so sick all the time that my family would be more financially stable. I also have a tendency to pick up on other people’s feelings. If something happens to someone in my family or someone I love, I feel horrible for them. It’s something that I’ve gotten better about, but it’s still a problem. I asked someone who had experienced cancer at a young age if they had experienced that as well. She told me she had and anyone else she knew who had cancer at a young age experienced that as well.
Since we have a tendency to feel for other people, there tends to be two or more sides to everything. Obviously there are always many sides to things like issues, but not everyone sees them. That isn’t just when helping someone out or being pulled into an argument; it is also in school as well. I know personally, that anytime I had to write a paper that told me to pick a side to an argument I had a horrible time with it. I could always see both sides to the argument. Then when I had to write papers about why a character was viewed as a villain, I always saw how it wasn’t their entire fault or that they really were a good person. I’m not positive if other people who experienced cancer go through this as well, but I know I definitely do.
I have noticed that quite a lot of people who have gone through something medically challenging are understanding. Now I’m not saying everyone is, but a majority of them are. They feel for you. The thing about working a customer service job when you care is it takes a toll on you. You feel for everyone and genuinely care and want to help them. I can honestly say that if I hadn’t gone through some of the things I had, like cancer, I don’t think I would be the way I am now. I also think I wouldn’t have made it as far as I have because of it as well. Many people don’t realize that they see the world a little different, but I’ve found if you’re the one causing controversy because you’re agreeing with both sides you’re probably seeing more of the picture.
Deal With It
It’s Yours Forever
The thing about life is once something happens you’re stuck with it forever. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. It is yours no matter what. Cancer will forever be a part of me, no matter how sick of it I get sometimes. That has to be one of the hardest things about it. No matter how much I want people to see past it and even the other things I’ve been through; I’m still labeled by them. It seems inevitable at times. If you tell someone not to long after you’ve met that you’ve had cancer or they found about it, they have a tendency to think of you differently. Now, if you don’t tell that person about having cancer they have a tendency to get very upset about it. I’ve actually had someone lose respect for me because I didn’t think it was that important. There is no easy way to tell someone you had cancer, or about anything else that has happened to you. You really shouldn’t be labeled by something, it’s not fair. It’s not like I asked to have cancer. At the very least, I should be able to move away from it to the point where it’s not necessarily relevant anymore. Sure some people have to know because I have yearly checkups, but that should really be as far as it goes unless it’s medically relevant.
Besides having people judging, no matter how annoying it is, there are other things that are affected by cancer. A big one for females is not being able to have children. Chemotherapy, meaning chemical therapy, kills off things in your body. Now if you add radiation, which is when they actually put radioactive atoms into your body, it becomes even harder for women to have children. The horrible thing about this though, is that when you get to that point where you want to have children, you don’t know if it’s possible. Girls are born, actually once the ovaries are formed, with so many eggs and as you age they slowly deplete. When they are completely gone, menopause normally takes over. However, that doesn’t always happen. Then cancer, because of treatment, takes away some of those eggs if not all of them. Then let’s say you are able to get pregnant, there are other problems connected to the pregnancy because of cancer. Even for men it stays with them. Infertility happens to them too, but they don’t run out of sperm. Their body will always produce it, just it will create blanks. Then there is a possibility that the chemotherapy and/or radiation will cause other medical problems. Then of course having cancer once raises the chance of you getting skin or breast cancer, yes guys can get breast cancer too. It will forever follow in your shadow, even if you can’t really see it anymore. It still somehow finds a way to wriggle itself back into view. On the upside though, it does create fantastic scholarship opportunities if you are a student.
I am not upset, anymore, that I had cancer and I have come to terms that it will forever be with me. It can be extremely hard at times, but I know I’m not alone. There are people that seek me out for help or just stumble upon me and I’m glad that I’m able to help them in some way. Life is hard and things like cancer make it harder, but if I had a chance to erase it from my life I wouldn’t. Sure it was a horrible thing that I will never forget, but it gave me amazing opportunities and I got to meet the most amazing people. The camp that I got to experience because of it was the most amazing place and I am always so excited to go back and experience even just little parts of it. People would be amazed if they knew what that camp did for children with cancer. I was also given the opportunity to take my family to Disney World, which I don’t know if that would have ever happened if I hadn’t had cancer. Sure there are so many bad memories associated with cancer, but there are also some of the most amazing ones too. There are things that I will never forget my mom and dad doing for me. They strung themselves out so far for me during that time, that when I look back at it I am still amazed. I don’t know how they both did it with jobs and my mom taking care of my other siblings. My father lived with me and had to deal with so many of the things that I had to as well. I will forever remember everything about having cancer.
There are more forms of cancer than people realize. I am sick of hearing about only certain one’s getting financial help to find the cure. What about all the other ones? They are just as important. Just because we, other cancer survivors and sufferers, didn’t have breast cancer doesn’t mean we aren’t just as important. Don’t forget, judge, or discriminate against people who have had, suffered or died from cancer. We’re just like everyone else. You wouldn’t hate someone for having blond hair would you? It’s just another thing that makes us all different and special. Everyone’s life and strife is important. Don’t forget that.
Cancer
You know the interesting thing about having cancer? You have PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), you become basically magnetic, you learn to see things differently, and of course you have to live with it for the rest of your life. Obviously cancer is complicated, if you’ve experienced it you know firsthand, and if you know someone going through it you see how the complications affect us which affects you emotionally. I’ve seen how knowing someone with cancer affects people, does that mean when someone comes up to me and says they understand how hard it is that I actually believe them? If they’ve had cancer or are going through it themselves, then yeah I do and I will swap stories with them and give advice where I think it is needed. When they haven’t, but they know someone who has I sort of understand where they are coming from but I’m still pretty skeptical. How does someone who has never been through something like cancer tells me they understand how it is to go through it? They can say they understand how hard it seems or that they hope my family and friends are holding up, because they’ve been in that situation. Now when someone who has never had cancer comes up to me and tells me they understand how hard it was I start to get a little peeved on the inside, especially when they start to compare something that is nowhere near the same. Look, don’t get me wrong I always appreciate the gesture no matter how much I don’t want to talk about it. Now there is that group of individuals who say they understand being a child going through horrible diseases, major life changing surgeries, and other things similar to those. Those people I really do not like talking to. It is not at all because I don’t appreciate what they are trying to do or that they really can relate. It is the fact that they had that horrible disease or major surgery. I hate hearing about children going through awful things. It makes me so unbearably sick to my stomach, anxious and just makes me want to cry. It brings back so many memories, ones that I normally don’t want to think about.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
I’m sure you’re wondering what I mean by you experience PTSD, or maybe you have a bit of an idea. Not only do you experience flashbacks, you also wake up with nightmares about being in the hospital, and well you’re just straight up traumatized. Obviously most PTSD is associated with war veterans which makes very much sense. Of course there are also people who get it from disasters, assaults and even accidents. So, it is not completely impossible for someone who went through something like cancer to get it.
Let’s start with the flashbacks. I asked someone when they heard flashbacks, what they thought of. They told me what they thought of was those weird dream like sequences that are in movies or television shows. Well that just surprised me; here I thought they would have said something about war veterans. Anyways, when I hear flashbacks I see different crappy things I’ve gone through, most of the time I go back to when I was in the hospital.
Example: I remember being jostled awake as I was transferred to a gurney. I was searching around in a panic looking for one of my parents. No one was there and I was six and I was terrified. I had no idea what was going on. A nurse was holding pressure on my chest which made it hard to breathe sometimes. We came flying out of my dark room into the extremely bright hallway lights. Nurses were yelling for people to get out of the way. A doctor pushed through the nurses, finally someone I recognized. He gave me a smile, “Are you ok?” I could feel my eyes tearing up. I knew I was going to cry. What was going on! “It’s ok,” he said. He looked at one of the nurses. “Where’s her parents.” “Her father should be here soon, it’s about the time he normally comes in.” My dad, where is my dad. I want my dad! I started crying. I fell apart, who could blame me. I was a six year old who had been torn from her bed while she was asleep. “Aww. Sweety. It’s ok. Everything is going to be ok.” I just cried harder. “We have to get her to calm down; she’s going to make it worse.” We turned another corner and there he was running towards me in his work suit. “Daddy!” I lost it. As soon as I saw him I lost it. He grabbed my hand and I knew everything would be ok. I have no idea what he was talking to the nurses and doctor about. I couldn’t hear them over my crying and holding onto his hand so tight.
That was one of the scariest things that I can remember from having cancer. I was six and I was terrified. I relied on my parents to be there for me, and I felt special because I had my parents. Not all of the kids at the hospital did. Not all of my flash backs were like that. I have a few that aren’t as scary. There is one that I still have from when I had to get a spinal tap. The funny thing about it is that I’m not supposed to remember it. Even now when I see my doctors they are astonished that I did. I remember my laying on the table curled up in the fetal position. My mom was in front of me and I was telling her that it hurt. I kept telling her I didn’t want to be there, I wanted to go back to my room. I remember the doctor telling me to curl up more and to hold it. Then it really started to hurt. I started to cry a little and my mom was trying to distract me. She was asking me about what type of posters I wanted to hang up in my room with different family members on it and what I wanted it to say under each picture. I remember how much it hurt in a very strange way and my mom repeating questions over and over to me to distract me. After all of that, I remember waking up in my room in my hospital bed.
It’s interesting what you remember after big things happen to you. It seems that many of my flash back cancer memories were sad. However, they all weren’t. I remember running around my hospital room with my little brother while eating McDonalds. I do have a very good memory though. It makes me cry sometimes, but in a good way. It was probably one of the happiest days I had while I was in the hospital.
My older brother is extremely important to me. I don’t know why, because I love all of my siblings very much. When I used to hear that my older brother and sister might be coming to see me in the hospital I was so excited. I would ask the nurses if I could have the Sega Castle (a Sega consol in a plastic castle that was mobile with a TV). I would bounce on my bed in a seated position waiting for them to walk through the door, but he wasn’t there. That happened many times and every time I would be disappointed and hurt. So, I stopped asking for it. What was the point of trying to get something to entertain my brother if he wasn’t going to be there? One Saturday, I was sitting on my bed watching the television and my mom came in with my little brother and my sister. A couple minutes after they had walked in, my brother came through the door. I almost jumped off the bed and ran to him. I was so excited to see him. My dad had to grab me so I wouldn’t rip my central line out. He was very cautious when he came towards me. When he finally hugged me, I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed as hard as I could. The harder I squeezed him the more firm of a huge he gave me trying not to bruise me (having a low white blood cell count made me bruise easily). I remember freaking out about trying to get the Sega castle so we could play it. We didn’t get it, but we had a lot of fun coloring, talking and playing board games we got from the play area. I was extremely happy that day.
Nightmares, that’s another thing that comes with PTSD. Oh the nightmares. I remember waking up sweating and in a panic. Not only would this happen while I was in the hospital, but also when I was finally home again. The nightmares I had where normally my first flashback. I did have other ones though. Every time my older sister was over she would hear me wake up at night and sometimes she would go and get our mom or my dad (we had the same mom different dad). Some of my dreams that involved the hospital were quite traumatic.
Example: It was very dark and I could hear the beep of my IV (Intravenous). I opened my eyes to an almost invisible room because of the curtains being closed, except for a sliver of light streaming through them. All of a sudden my chest started to hurt as if someone was sitting on my chest. I knew my dad was not far sleeping because of the curtains still being closed. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. The pressure was getting heavier and heavier, I couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t anyone hear me? Even though I couldn’t scream I had to have been making noises. The pain made me try and curl into a little ball but I was strapped to the bed. I laid back flat and mustered the last bit of breath I could get. I put all of it into a scream. At first nothing came out and finally I started to scream.
My scream in that dream actually was what pulled me out of the dream. You know how TV shows have people who wake up from dreams screaming and in a sweat? Well that was basically my dream, and it wasn’t like I thought I had screamed. I really had. I woke my sister up and freaked her out. That’s the bad thing about sharing rooms with your siblings, when your little sister wakes up screaming from a nightmare you get woken up by her scream too. Many people had to deal with my nightmares, but it made me feel better when my roommate would wake up from them too.
The thing about nightmares is that many people have them. It’s not like there is just a small amount of people who have them. I still have nightmares, just when I was little I would have a lot of reoccurring ones. Many of the ones I would have involved my parents being eaten murdered or kidnapped. I would wake up many times crying and wanting my mom. Who can really blame me though? Those were horrible dreams. It was even worse when my parents didn’t hear my screaming for them, so I would actually think something did happen to them and like most little kids I would come flying down the stairs into their room. I was going through or had just survived a very serious disease that was almost a slim to none type of cancer for someone my age to have.
I used to have one dream that started while I was in the hospital and that I kept having until I was about ten years old. My family (my mom, my dad, my brothers, my sister, and I) and my aunts family (my aunt, my uncle, my two guy cousins, and my girl cousin) were walking across a railroad track that was above a cove. The train started coming towards us and all of the adults in our group told us to jump, so we did. When we hit the water the whole situation became extremely crazy. My mom and dad were yelling at my older brother and sister to get my younger brother and me out of the water as fast as possible. My aunt and uncle were yelling something similar at their children. We started swimming as fast as we could towards shore. All I could here was them yelling and the water rushing past me started to drown them out. When we got to shore I looked back at the water and all I saw was water that was slightly tinged red. Where were my mom and dad? How come they hadn’t fallowed us? Before I could ask anything I was being dragged up towards this very strange puzzle like house. It had a small curved suspended walkway that looked over a waterfall. We went into the house and there was no one inside. My older brother thought this would be a good place to stay for now. We ended up being there for weeks. One day my brother tripped and fell down the stairs. When he hit the bottom of them he would start at the top and fall down them again. He never stopped. One of my guy cousins walked into a room and disappeared. The other one tripped and fell through the floor. I never saw them again. My sister walked on the walkway that looked over the waterfall. The water looked as if it never stopped, so she leaned forward to see if it ever did. She slipped and fell with the waterfall forever. There wasn’t a bottom. My female cousin just disappeared one day. I have no idea where she went. My little brother was the only person who was with me after that. We ended up finding out that my parents had been killed by something in the water. Apparently my brother had been making what he called a Captains Log. It told us everything. The dream ended with my brother and I holding the log curled up in a little ball in the corner of the room we had found it in, crying.
The very last time I had that dream it changed for the first time in four years. There was a knock at the door. A UPS person was delivering a package to us and the delivery person ended up being my mom. She took us home. It was interesting how the further away I got from having cancer the more my dreams changed. All of my dreams I had when I had cancer and the dreams I had after I had it were normally nightmares. It makes sense though if you think about it, a child having nightmares while dealing with a traumatic disease/event.
Oh the trauma that comes along with cancer. It’s there, it really is. Needles. For me needles are a great example. I had so many needles when I had cancer that I hate them. I hate looking at them, I hate seeing them, and I hate being stuck by them. Well the last thing many people don’t like. Hospitals make me very nervous. They make me panicky and I always think the worst when it comes to anything that has to do with them. There’s also that panic in the back of your head that it will come back. No matter how many times you’re told it won’t and that if it was going to it would have comeback within a year. Every time I go to the hospital, especially with abdominal pain it is the first thing that pops into my head. Cancer. What if it’s cancer again? No matter how many times I’m told it’s not possible, the thought is still burned into my brain. The other thing that really bothers me probably more than anything because of what I went through is hearing about children that are going through diseases, and any other horrible things. Like I said before they make me so unbearably sick to my stomach, anxious and just makes me want to cry. It’s not that I don’t feel for them or understand what some of them are going through. It just brings up my PTSD so to say. Why do people want to watch shows about horrible things that are happening to children anyways? It’s like watching someone die in front of you and going “Awww wow that’s so sad. Oh this is getting boring,” changes channel, “There we go. I’ll go back to that in a few minutes. This looks interesting.” How horrible is that. I don’t want to watch more children slowly die. I already saw children doing that, and some of them were my friends. Having one of your good friends die is indescribable. The whole time I see those videos, shows, and hear those stories it just makes me wonder why me. Why am I the little kid that made it through everything? I had everything working against me and somehow I’m the kid that managed to live. What made me so special that I was allowed to live and not one of my friends. It is one of the most horrible feelings that I have ever experienced. Almost every day, especially days where I have to have another surgery, still recovering, or I’m ill, I wonder why I’m alive. Why didn’t I die? It never helps when people say I bring them all of this hope for their lives. Hopefully one day I’ll figure it out and maybe then I won’t be traumatized when I see children who are going through diseases, and who are going through other horrible things.
I’m Magnetic
No it’s not a super power
I have met so many people who have or had cancer that sometimes I think I have a sign on me that says, “Hey! Over here! Talk to me if you’ve had cancer!” Ok, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind talking to people who are going or had gone through cancer. It’s just when I get 10 people in one day that I start thinking about how to burn the sign I might have on me somewhere. I don’t just get those people; I also get the cancer haters. Those are an interesting group of people.
I want to start with people who are going through cancer or had it. One of the things I always seem to get when I’m talking to people going through cancer is that I’m a miracle to them. I get it almost every time and every time I wonder how in the world do they think I’m a miracle. I mean yeah, I did survive it and at a young age but I guess because of those factors that having cancer just doesn’t seem like a big deal. I’ve been asked quite a lot how do I have all of these conversations? Do I really meet that many people who have had cancer? Well yeah, actually I do. I have probably met most of them while working at my guest relations job, where people come in for services such as massages, facials, hair services, and nail services.
I started having people tell me they were going through cancer during the breast cancer awareness month we were having at work. It started with this lady; she was the nicest lady I had met all day. She and her friend were coming in for a massage and a facial, and since she was currently going through treatment she was not allowed to have a massage, so her and her friend had to switch services. Well while I was taking her and her friend back they were sort of ranting about how they couldn’t have the services they had been planning on. I piped in and explained to the lady how it would be a bad idea not only because it was easier for her to bruise since her white blood count was lower than a normal person and because she wouldn’t want toxins being released from her glands with everything else going on. She just sort of looked at me for a few minutes and then said, “How in the world did you know that?” I smiled and told her about how I had had cancer when I was six. She got the biggest smile on her face and gave me a huge hug. She told me I gave her hope and about how scared she was. I told her everything was going to be ok. I told her if I could do it, she could do it too. She asked me what I had and I told her and about how I had done research on it and how it had said that someone my age shouldn’t have been able to have that cancer. She kept asking more about my cancer and what had happened. She started telling me about her breast cancer and everything that she was going through. I was able to relate to her and she told me that she was so happy to have someone she could talk to that understood how she felt. I had to say that it was a really good feeling talking to someone about it that understood and that I was able to make someone going through cancer feel better.
After awhile though, you kind of get sick of that magnetic pull. You really just don’t want to talk about it anymore. People start to see you as something you think you’re not. I’ve had people dislike me because I’ve had it and I’ve had people think I was some amazing person to make it through cancer. I was six years old; it is a part of me that is so far away at this point I don’t see why it has such an impact on people now. It’s not like I had a play book on how to get through it, I just sort of did.
Open Your Eyes
And Take a Look Around
One thing that cancer did give me was the ability to see things a little differently. There was a period in my life where everything to me was negative, but then that changed. Now I have a tendency to see the silver lining. Now, I’m not saying always because that would just be a straight out lie. I don’t know anyone who is able to see the bright side all the time.
It’s interesting though how I worry so much. I actually found out from the hospital I was treated at that excessive worrying is very normal for child cancer patients and survivors. It has to do with how much we care about everything. Everything is important even the little things. Sometimes it might not show how upset we are, it’s pretty normal for us to be emotional about things. A good example of this was a guy I met at camp on year. This was a camp for children with cancer. He came across like the big guy on campus. Everyone loved and hated him. He had a very crude sense of humor. Anything he could make sexual, he did. Well I was sitting on a very large rock with him and another girl watching the soccer game. They were bickering like no bodies business. I eventually got fed up and told them they argued like an old married couple. If they had dishes, I could have seen them throwing them around like in a cartoon. They both looked at me absolutely baffled until the girl looked at me and asked how I knew they had dated. I honestly didn’t know they had been dating, but I picked up on a vibe. I shrugged and said it was the way they interacted that gave it away. Well later on when everyone was hanging out, he stopped me on my way back from the bathroom. He completely fell apart on me and told me the whole story about him and that girl. When I asked him why he wanted to talk to me about this, he said that he just got a feeling like I could help. I laughed and then told him to keep talking. At the end of the conversation he hugged me and told me thank you. On our way back to meet up with everyone else I asked him why he put up such a front to everyone, his response hurt my heart. He said he worried about his father thinking her was weak, so he acted like he was to good for everything that way no one would know who he really was.
The interesting thing about that moment was it showed how emotional we both are and also how worrisome we are. He told me later that he had a little brother that had never been sick his whole life, so he was tough in a different way. It was a type of tough his father was proud of. I understand that feeling because I was the only one of four kids that had anything really medically wrong with them. Even to this day I’m having some issues. I always, even now, worry that if I wasn’t so sick all the time that my family would be more financially stable. I also have a tendency to pick up on other people’s feelings. If something happens to someone in my family or someone I love, I feel horrible for them. It’s something that I’ve gotten better about, but it’s still a problem. I asked someone who had experienced cancer at a young age if they had experienced that as well. She told me she had and anyone else she knew who had cancer at a young age experienced that as well.
Since we have a tendency to feel for other people, there tends to be two or more sides to everything. Obviously there are always many sides to things like issues, but not everyone sees them. That isn’t just when helping someone out or being pulled into an argument; it is also in school as well. I know personally, that anytime I had to write a paper that told me to pick a side to an argument I had a horrible time with it. I could always see both sides to the argument. Then when I had to write papers about why a character was viewed as a villain, I always saw how it wasn’t their entire fault or that they really were a good person. I’m not positive if other people who experienced cancer go through this as well, but I know I definitely do.
I have noticed that quite a lot of people who have gone through something medically challenging are understanding. Now I’m not saying everyone is, but a majority of them are. They feel for you. The thing about working a customer service job when you care is it takes a toll on you. You feel for everyone and genuinely care and want to help them. I can honestly say that if I hadn’t gone through some of the things I had, like cancer, I don’t think I would be the way I am now. I also think I wouldn’t have made it as far as I have because of it as well. Many people don’t realize that they see the world a little different, but I’ve found if you’re the one causing controversy because you’re agreeing with both sides you’re probably seeing more of the picture.
Deal With It
It’s Yours Forever
The thing about life is once something happens you’re stuck with it forever. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. It is yours no matter what. Cancer will forever be a part of me, no matter how sick of it I get sometimes. That has to be one of the hardest things about it. No matter how much I want people to see past it and even the other things I’ve been through; I’m still labeled by them. It seems inevitable at times. If you tell someone not to long after you’ve met that you’ve had cancer or they found about it, they have a tendency to think of you differently. Now, if you don’t tell that person about having cancer they have a tendency to get very upset about it. I’ve actually had someone lose respect for me because I didn’t think it was that important. There is no easy way to tell someone you had cancer, or about anything else that has happened to you. You really shouldn’t be labeled by something, it’s not fair. It’s not like I asked to have cancer. At the very least, I should be able to move away from it to the point where it’s not necessarily relevant anymore. Sure some people have to know because I have yearly checkups, but that should really be as far as it goes unless it’s medically relevant.
Besides having people judging, no matter how annoying it is, there are other things that are affected by cancer. A big one for females is not being able to have children. Chemotherapy, meaning chemical therapy, kills off things in your body. Now if you add radiation, which is when they actually put radioactive atoms into your body, it becomes even harder for women to have children. The horrible thing about this though, is that when you get to that point where you want to have children, you don’t know if it’s possible. Girls are born, actually once the ovaries are formed, with so many eggs and as you age they slowly deplete. When they are completely gone, menopause normally takes over. However, that doesn’t always happen. Then cancer, because of treatment, takes away some of those eggs if not all of them. Then let’s say you are able to get pregnant, there are other problems connected to the pregnancy because of cancer. Even for men it stays with them. Infertility happens to them too, but they don’t run out of sperm. Their body will always produce it, just it will create blanks. Then there is a possibility that the chemotherapy and/or radiation will cause other medical problems. Then of course having cancer once raises the chance of you getting skin or breast cancer, yes guys can get breast cancer too. It will forever follow in your shadow, even if you can’t really see it anymore. It still somehow finds a way to wriggle itself back into view. On the upside though, it does create fantastic scholarship opportunities if you are a student.
I am not upset, anymore, that I had cancer and I have come to terms that it will forever be with me. It can be extremely hard at times, but I know I’m not alone. There are people that seek me out for help or just stumble upon me and I’m glad that I’m able to help them in some way. Life is hard and things like cancer make it harder, but if I had a chance to erase it from my life I wouldn’t. Sure it was a horrible thing that I will never forget, but it gave me amazing opportunities and I got to meet the most amazing people. The camp that I got to experience because of it was the most amazing place and I am always so excited to go back and experience even just little parts of it. People would be amazed if they knew what that camp did for children with cancer. I was also given the opportunity to take my family to Disney World, which I don’t know if that would have ever happened if I hadn’t had cancer. Sure there are so many bad memories associated with cancer, but there are also some of the most amazing ones too. There are things that I will never forget my mom and dad doing for me. They strung themselves out so far for me during that time, that when I look back at it I am still amazed. I don’t know how they both did it with jobs and my mom taking care of my other siblings. My father lived with me and had to deal with so many of the things that I had to as well. I will forever remember everything about having cancer.
There are more forms of cancer than people realize. I am sick of hearing about only certain one’s getting financial help to find the cure. What about all the other ones? They are just as important. Just because we, other cancer survivors and sufferers, didn’t have breast cancer doesn’t mean we aren’t just as important. Don’t forget, judge, or discriminate against people who have had, suffered or died from cancer. We’re just like everyone else. You wouldn’t hate someone for having blond hair would you? It’s just another thing that makes us all different and special. Everyone’s life and strife is important. Don’t forget that.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Where Has It All Gone
Time,
Tick, Tick, Tick,
It’s everywhere,
Taunting me,
It screams at me,
“You’re running out of time,”
After only 20 years of life,
I’m running out to time,
Cancer,
Chemotherapy,
Surgery upon surgery,
Eggs dying,
My dreams with them,
Find a perfect love,
Procreate,
I’m running out of time,
I might not even be able to,
Distress,
Anxiety,
My life in the balance,
Tick,
Tick,
Tick,
Time,
Gone.
Tick, Tick, Tick,
It’s everywhere,
Taunting me,
It screams at me,
“You’re running out of time,”
After only 20 years of life,
I’m running out to time,
Cancer,
Chemotherapy,
Surgery upon surgery,
Eggs dying,
My dreams with them,
Find a perfect love,
Procreate,
I’m running out of time,
I might not even be able to,
Distress,
Anxiety,
My life in the balance,
Tick,
Tick,
Tick,
Time,
Gone.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
A Quick Review
I haven't updated for awhile, but that's besides the point. I would like to bring up a few things, like the Nissan Leaf. It's interesting. I read a bit about it and it is an electric car. Mind you I haven't heard about any bugs yet, but it isn't for sale yet either. I just really like it because of the polar bear commercial. Now, for why I haven't been updating. I have been writing my story that I came up with when I was 10. It has morphed since then, but the same basic idea still applies. I am sad to see that it has lost popularity after chapter 2 by about 75%. I can't figure out why, and no one will give me any feed back as to what is wrong with it. I love good feedback, but bad feedback is more helpful. At least then I know what to fix. If you want to read it, hit me up. I'm more than happy to send it your way. :)
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Word Usage
It's interesting how people use words. Like names, how people refer to someone else. My mom today asked me if I call her mom or mommy. Mind you this was during a story I was telling her so it caught me off guard. Anyways, I told her mom and then I corrected myself and said I call her mum. Then she said what do you call your father and I was like Daddy, or sometimes Dad. Normally it's daddy though. She was said that was interesting. I responded with a why? She said well you call me Mum and your father Daddy. It just shows the little girl in you and how much you love him and miss him. I found that interesting.
I guess it is true though, my dad will always be my daddy. I always refer to him as that, even when I'm on the phone talking to him. I say things like "Daddy?" or "I love you daddy." I do love him though like I was a little girl. I miss him, my dad that was mine when I was little. Everything changed around the age of thirteen and I felt like I lost him. A great example of this is in an earlier post. Anyways, I found him again recently and I love that. He's my daddy. I hope he always will be and it doesn't bother me that I act like a little girl or that my little girl comes through. He's my dad and I love him.
I guess it is true though, my dad will always be my daddy. I always refer to him as that, even when I'm on the phone talking to him. I say things like "Daddy?" or "I love you daddy." I do love him though like I was a little girl. I miss him, my dad that was mine when I was little. Everything changed around the age of thirteen and I felt like I lost him. A great example of this is in an earlier post. Anyways, I found him again recently and I love that. He's my daddy. I hope he always will be and it doesn't bother me that I act like a little girl or that my little girl comes through. He's my dad and I love him.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Animal Abuse
I have heard about animal abuse and I have seen the after affects. I have seen the commercials and the TV shows where people are saving those animals. I have never ever seen someone light a live kitten on fire, video it and watch it burn to death. Why would someone ever do that! To any animal! I was completely astonished, pissed off and disgusted all at once when I saw the images. I can't even mentally come up with anything else to say about this I am so baffled, angry and disgusted. I actually wish someone would do that to her. Light her on fire and make her run around screaming. However, that wouldn't solve anything and that would be wrong. I would never really wish that on someone no matter how appealing it may seem in my brain at the time of the thought.
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