Seven Things, Day Five

I’m scared of cancer.

My mother was diagnosed with Colon Cancer several days after her 40th birthday. She had seen the signs of it on her actual birthday, May 9; the day before Mother’s Day and also the day before her father passed away. Can you imagine that? She had one child in middle school, one in second grade, and one in preschool and I remember her holding her composure so well. As children we had no idea she was internally struggling with the possibility of Cancer while also grieving her father’s death. And all in a weekend where we should have been celebrating her 40th birthday and her motherhood.

Later, after a scope we found out that she had large mushroom shaped tumors and that they were malignant. Her doctors opted for surgery since they had caught the cancer early enough and they scheduled surgery for June when we would be out of school and my father could manage things on the homefront. They sent all of us off to camp.

They took 18 inches from her colon but unfortunately they opened her up vertically and cut all of her stomach muscles, thus making her recovery very difficult. (If anyone remembers, this is also the time that Ronald Reagan had colon surgery and they opened him horizontally. My mother was very upset about this because he bounced right back.)

20 years later my great-aunt (my mothers aunt) passed away from colon cancer.

In 2002 my uncle passed away from Rhabdomyosarcoma, a very rare and typically a childhood cancer.

In 2006, just months after AJ came home, my father in law passed away from Esophageal Cancer.

All three of us children are scheduled to have colonoscopies beginning at age 30 and every 3 years thereafter. My older brother has had two so far and his doctors have already removed several benign polyps.

I had my first colonoscopy last month and it was very difficult for me. My history of endometriosis made the procedure very difficult for the doctor and a procedure that typically takes 20 minutes took over an hour. Additionally, I kept waking up (the doctor blamed my hair color) and I was able to feel the procedure and watch what was happening. Because they had to do a lot of maneuvering of my muscles and ligaments I was very sore for several days, something that is not typical.

They removed two very large benign polyps that had they not been removed would have become cancerous. If benign polyps are not removed from the large intestine, they can become malignant (cancerous) over time. Most of the cancers of the large intestine are believed to have developed from polyps.

Today I’m tagging all of my readers who have been touched my cancer. Make sure to link back here when you write…and for this one you only need to write about today, no need to do all 7 things unless you really want.