Well, we found out what Martin’s health issue is. AND we found out on his mother’s birthday. What is it with us and diagnosis-es on birthdays?! It’s not his tooth like we thought, it’s not an infection like we hoped, it’s not the lymph nodes. What is it then? Drum roll please…..it’s cancer! You’ve got to be kidding me with this! Another major health crisis with him in less than 2 years? SERIOUSLY?!!! Who feels like one big cosmic punching bag right now? That’s right! This girl does!
BUT believe it or not there is good news. He was diagnosed with stage 4 tonsular carcinoma. No, that is not the good news, the good news is that this type of cancer is extremely treatable and does NOT spread, it stays contained. But the mere thought of going through another cancer treatment with a family member overwhelms me. I mean this on top of the grief too? Shoot me now!
Even though this treatment is no where near as aggressive as what Andrew went through, it’s an out patient treatment if we choose the western med route, there shouldn’t be any hair loss, but it still scares the shit out of me anyway! Grief kicks my ass as it is, cancer just won’t leave us the fuck alone!
Once you go through an aggressive cancer treatment with one family member, especially your child, it’s hard not to have a knee jerk reaction when you may have to go through more chemo/radiation treatment with another immediate family member. I mean I’m 3 for 3 just with my own damn family!
For those that may be new to this blog and me, here’s the cliff notes. The doctors wanted to do chemo, radiation and more surgery to remove more female organs on my daughter Elatia, with her rare ovarian tumor in December 2006. Even though she nearly died after the emergency surgery to remove the tumor AND ovary, we all agreed absolutely not! No chemo, radiation or more surgery to remove more female organs! Her ct-scan was clear, why would you be so aggressive on someone, treat a tumor like cancer because it has malignant potential, when you already removed the offending object, AND she nearly died from it? “Just in case?” REALLY? Her heart couldn’t take the surgery, so by all means slice, dice and poison my daughter! Well then, why don’t we just use canon balls on mosquitoes too! Too much? YA THINK?
Then she gets a letter from the oncologist saying that it’s a shame that a 25yo has to die! Seriously she got that letter! This is what I was dealing with the 7 months prior to Andrew’s lovely leukemia diagnosis. I had a friend recently tell me he’s surprised I’m not doing heroine yet. Ya know, it kinda surprises me too sometimes, but then again my veins are too small anyways, and it’d be way too much work to find them! I guess it just proves that what Martin, Andrew and I teach works. We walk our talk and practice what we teach and we are able to keep moving forward with some sanity intact. Maybe not all of it, but enough of it to help others and keep going. ;-)
Sooooo you’re probably wondering where Andrew is in all of this, right? He’s right here with us. Did I feel that at first? NO! the Mama Gene came forth in a Wrath of Con sort of way! SO yes I did feel angry at him because I felt like he didn’t have our backs. I mean we have been working so hard to continue his teachings, we’re a team, and the work we do together is so important and powerful, we effect peoples’ lives in a huge positive way, so WTH dude?
I asked, “Don’t you have any pull as an Avatar? Don’t we get some sort of consideration of doing our job well with raising an Avatar, and NOT crumbling when he leaves, even after all the shit that has been thrown our way? OR is it just one heartache after another for us here? Is that the reward for all our hard work!?”
A friend, who our work has changed her life, so she knows what we do makes a difference, texted me kind of the same feelings, a “WTF” if you will, so we went at Andrew together! :-) Have to admit, it felt good to tag team him! lol
Once I got that out of my system, because I honor my Mama Gene/human side, and so does Andrew, blessing my wooden head with every rant, I knew we had to get to work on our options. And of course, look at what the bigger picture is in all of this, what can we learn from it, and what can we teach from it.
Unlike with Andrew’s leukemia diagnosis, we have the time to make decisions. Martin feels great, so we can move forward with what we want to do, not just do what Western doctors want us to do. I have to say, I was a little disappointed that our acupuncturist who saved Elatia’s life, wants Martin to do the chemo/radiation. Martin reminded me that she is a surgeon first, she was an ENT dr in China. AND a part of me hates to admit this, but Marts ENT dr has a 100% success rate in curing this cancer with chemo and radiation, and there is a small part of me that thinks that may be the way to go.
So once we made peace with the diagnosis and my head quit spinning from yet another cancer diagnosis in my immediate family, we are looking at all our options holistically and traditionally. We have no insurance so it’s not like we can just start with western medicine treatment anyway. So we are raising the money for treatment through www.gofundme.com.
The first thing we would have to do with western medicine is a “pet-scan,” which is $1800. That will show the doctors all the ins and outs of the mass. If we decide to go with traditional treatment down the road, Martin will more than likely go to N Ireland for it. It would cost less, only flights and our bills at home for a few months. Holistic treatment is not cheap either unfortunately.
If we have to go through yet another cancer issue, I am glad that we have the time to research and make decisions that are best for us and we can deal with this on our terms. With Andrew it was totally out of our hands. There was no time to decide anything.
So we are starting off holistically with things we can do now to see what difference it makes while we raise the money for treatment, however that looks. We will have to find a doctor whether it be a western or holistic one. I am excited we have the time this time to research, start holistically right away, and that Martin feels great! So we still have our lives, and it isn’t revolving around hospitals and chaos and having to make life and death decisions everyday like before with Andrew. That, I just don’t think I could handle again.
And of course Andrew has been letting us know what? (which will be the next blog post of how he has let us know…) That not matter what…..
IT’S ALL GOOD!