I was prompted to write this all down last May, though I refused. I know better then to refuse leading from Jesus but I often take advantage of my own free will and then have to live though an experience to remind me of what I have been asked to do. Here goes nothing...
Many of you are familiar with my family (if not search through my blog) and many of you are aware of Aurora's recent neuroblastoma "scare". If you were not aware my daughter Aurora, who is 7, started having strange health issues, resulting in many many tests and concluding that she must have a cancerous tumor called a neuroblastoma. Testing with oncology proved that her first test was some how a false positive or lab error. PRAISE JESUS for that! We only had a taste of the terror, the fear, then unknown that so many families are going through every single day! This is where my thoughts get tricky to express and my reasoning of refusing to try to muddle through them last year. We as a people do cancer support! We totally rock! My statuses were shared hundreds of times to cover us in prayer! People who had never heard of us were messaging, visiting, SUPPORTING us during this time of terror. I don't believe an hour would go by without an offer for help, Bible verse shared, prayer sent, food delivered, or phone call would come in! We were surrounded by SUPPORT! Possible cancer equals support...cancer, support, wow.
*I need to add in right here that my village is STRONG! The following is not a reflection of MY VILLAGE*
When I replace the word "cancer" with "RAD", "PTSD", "BIPOLAR, "MENTAL ILLNESS" why does the word "support" often change to "alone, empty or judged"? When I shared that Aurora possibly had cancer there was not one person who messaged me and said "maybe if you just loved her more this would go away" or "are you sure she looks healthy to me" BUT do you know how many families, when finally sharing about mental illness get those responses and worse! Yes cancer has terrible treatment options that take children and parents out of the home for hours, days, weeks and more but so does mental illness. In 2014-2015 we had a child/children in a psychiatric hospital for about a total of 9 months. That displaces the normal routines, we lost work hours, we spent hundreds on gas to get to and from these places, more on food to provide my children with needed nutrition, we missed out on birthdays and special times. Thankfully we have a wonderful village but what about the families who do not? We say cancer and even a stranger will spare time or money, we say mental illness and people stare at the ground. Even the medical professionals are kinder in a cancer situation...I get it the child did not choose to have cancer, guess what my children did NOT choose their mental illness. Some forms of cancer have a 95% cure rate I LONG FOR A CURE FROM MENTAL ILLNESS! There are mental health treatments that are effective in about 8 out of 10 people if continued LIFE LONG! BUT you say "cancer kills people" guess what so does a mental illness. These are things that I let set in while pondering Aurora and her possibility of having cancer and I found my self saying "well at least it is not depression" CRAZY I KNOW I should never ever admit that I had those thoughts, that the idea of years of chemo was not as scary as life long mental illness treatment. Many will label me a terrible mother and person for that, thank God I shed my need for human approval at the same time I shed the social norm for family size, make and model. Please do not misinterpret this CANCER SUCKS! I believe my favorite cancer hashtag is #FUCKCANCER (yes that is the F word in writing by me on my birthday...deal with it). I feel a deep need to completely cover EVERY family facing cancer with love, prayer and SUPPORT!!! I commend the villages that hold these families up because, trust me, without you they could not move in a forward direction! I challenge the villages, or current spectators, of families walking with mental illness to take a few, heck a million, pointers from the cancer villages and start to pair the words "mental illness" and "support" together. SUPPORT is so very beautiful and without my village my family would have crashed a long while ago!
I apologize for not attempting this blog a year ago. It would have been better then, I was at a more sound place in my moving forwardness...I stand on completely different ground today trying to figure out where I am headed and what that looks like so please accept my apologies!
We as a people do cancer support lets be a people who do support no matter the need...this is what I want for my birthday this year!
Many of you are familiar with my family (if not search through my blog) and many of you are aware of Aurora's recent neuroblastoma "scare". If you were not aware my daughter Aurora, who is 7, started having strange health issues, resulting in many many tests and concluding that she must have a cancerous tumor called a neuroblastoma. Testing with oncology proved that her first test was some how a false positive or lab error. PRAISE JESUS for that! We only had a taste of the terror, the fear, then unknown that so many families are going through every single day! This is where my thoughts get tricky to express and my reasoning of refusing to try to muddle through them last year. We as a people do cancer support! We totally rock! My statuses were shared hundreds of times to cover us in prayer! People who had never heard of us were messaging, visiting, SUPPORTING us during this time of terror. I don't believe an hour would go by without an offer for help, Bible verse shared, prayer sent, food delivered, or phone call would come in! We were surrounded by SUPPORT! Possible cancer equals support...cancer, support, wow.
*I need to add in right here that my village is STRONG! The following is not a reflection of MY VILLAGE*
When I replace the word "cancer" with "RAD", "PTSD", "BIPOLAR, "MENTAL ILLNESS" why does the word "support" often change to "alone, empty or judged"? When I shared that Aurora possibly had cancer there was not one person who messaged me and said "maybe if you just loved her more this would go away" or "are you sure she looks healthy to me" BUT do you know how many families, when finally sharing about mental illness get those responses and worse! Yes cancer has terrible treatment options that take children and parents out of the home for hours, days, weeks and more but so does mental illness. In 2014-2015 we had a child/children in a psychiatric hospital for about a total of 9 months. That displaces the normal routines, we lost work hours, we spent hundreds on gas to get to and from these places, more on food to provide my children with needed nutrition, we missed out on birthdays and special times. Thankfully we have a wonderful village but what about the families who do not? We say cancer and even a stranger will spare time or money, we say mental illness and people stare at the ground. Even the medical professionals are kinder in a cancer situation...I get it the child did not choose to have cancer, guess what my children did NOT choose their mental illness. Some forms of cancer have a 95% cure rate I LONG FOR A CURE FROM MENTAL ILLNESS! There are mental health treatments that are effective in about 8 out of 10 people if continued LIFE LONG! BUT you say "cancer kills people" guess what so does a mental illness. These are things that I let set in while pondering Aurora and her possibility of having cancer and I found my self saying "well at least it is not depression" CRAZY I KNOW I should never ever admit that I had those thoughts, that the idea of years of chemo was not as scary as life long mental illness treatment. Many will label me a terrible mother and person for that, thank God I shed my need for human approval at the same time I shed the social norm for family size, make and model. Please do not misinterpret this CANCER SUCKS! I believe my favorite cancer hashtag is #FUCKCANCER (yes that is the F word in writing by me on my birthday...deal with it). I feel a deep need to completely cover EVERY family facing cancer with love, prayer and SUPPORT!!! I commend the villages that hold these families up because, trust me, without you they could not move in a forward direction! I challenge the villages, or current spectators, of families walking with mental illness to take a few, heck a million, pointers from the cancer villages and start to pair the words "mental illness" and "support" together. SUPPORT is so very beautiful and without my village my family would have crashed a long while ago!
I apologize for not attempting this blog a year ago. It would have been better then, I was at a more sound place in my moving forwardness...I stand on completely different ground today trying to figure out where I am headed and what that looks like so please accept my apologies!
We as a people do cancer support lets be a people who do support no matter the need...this is what I want for my birthday this year!
