Where you scratch your head and say “She has issues”.

Lately I have been worrying myself with my worrying. (See, I’m telling you; I have issues!) I feel like I might be turning into either a person with a severe anxiety issue or a hypochondriac. I am not sure which is better.

For example, Fancy has had dark circles under her eyes for a while. She is already iron deficient so I thought I should call her doctor and make sure she didn’t want to retest her iron or have me give her more of the supplement or whatever. The pediatrician apparently thought I meant the dark circles were more than what they were because she told me she wanted her to come in so she could look at them because dark circles were sometimes a sign of something very serious. I took her in. Actually that is a lie, I made my husband take her in. And the doctor looked at the circles (which were considerably lighter than they were than they were 3 days prior, when I called) and said that was not what she was imagining and she was fine. But I go through a day here and there when I look at those circles and think that surely they are too dark and something dreadful is the matter with her.

Then, I have this lump in my breast. It’s a clogged duct or something. It was there when Warrior was tiny and I breastfed him. After I got done breastfeeding him, the lump disappeared, only to reappear when I started feeding Fancy. After she nurses, it’s almost completely gone. It’s nothing. Really. And for weeks, or even months, I don’t think about it. And then I get an obsession with it and feel it and make my breast sore and thing that surely I have some form of weird, undetected breast cancer.

I got sick to my stomach over the discoloration on Fancy’s teeth, Warrior’s foot pain, my permanently swollen lymph node under my arm, my husband’s giant wart on his hand (thinking it was some sort of skin cancer).

Lemme tell you, Google and I have a mixed relationship but when it comes to health issues, we are NOT friendly. (

So, when I’m in the depth of worrying about these things, it is all-consuming. I have no reserve left to think about anything else. It feels as real as I am typing this to me. But when I seperate myself from the issues, I know that I am totally over-analyzing and blowing them out of perportion.

The thing is, I did NOT used to be like this. Just in the last 3 years, or so, did I become this person. This person that can’t have sense talked into her over medical issues. The one who feels desperate to see doctors at times. The one who doesn’t even trust what the doctors tell her. The one with the knot in the pit of her stomach for days on end. The one who’s joy for the everyday gets stolen in these intense moments of worry.

So I decided to start doing some soul searching to try to find out what my problem is and why this began. And I think I figured it out.

Cancer. Cancer. Cancer. I typed that word three times because I still can’t believe it’s in my life. I can’t believe that it is effecting me. I can’t believe that my Mom has cancer. And it’s been three years that I’ve had that frickin’ word in my life and I still have the hardest time believing that it’s true. Cancer.  Dang.

So anyway, my mom had cancer for like forever before they caught it. She started exhibiting symptoms in her early 30’s. And they didn’t catch it until she was 45. Partly because it’s rare. Partly because it’s slow growing and takes a certain test to find out. Partly because the doctor she went to was a loser doctor.

But you see, when they did catch it, my mom was sick. The word sick doesn’t even cut it. Sick is when you have the stomach flu and you’re throwing up and you know you’re going to get better but you feel like a load of crap. Sick isn’t when you’re laying there and you have no energy and you’re getting worse by the minute and you’re not going to get better. The blunt truth is, my mom was dying. And fast.

When they finally found out that she had it, the doctor was like “You need chemo now, do not pass go, do not collect $200. No time for a second opinion.” That’s how bad it was. The thing that eats me is that this type of cancer can be kept under control relatively well IF YOU KNOW YOU HAVE IT.

It scares the crap out of me to know that you can be going to the doctor and actively seeking medical treatment and be totally overlooked and disregarded. That you can be freaking dying and need help but they sometimes don’t catch it. My mom almost died and the doctors were going to watch her.

By the time she got chemo, the specific kind they used had to be very strong. She carries the side effects from it around to this day. And she always will. But the place I can’t go is — because it was so late, that if they did not ‘cure’ it with these rounds, there was not a chance to try something else.

Sitting there soul searching, of course cancer came up. And I realized that it was several months after my mother was diagnosed that I started to become this way and I started to obsess over medical issues and lost my trust in the medical world. It all fell into place.

My way of coping with cancer is to try to make sure nothing happens to my family or myself before it’s too late. I obsess because I know first hand that the doctors aren’t always right. I’ve been burnt. I imagine the worst case scenario immediately — because I’ll feel it less when it actually happens. I expect it to happen and figure if it doesn’t, I’ll be relieved.

Cancer is a thief. It not only steals health and life from people; it takes a lot more.

I have determined that in this coming year, I am going to fight cancer. Not as much physically as emotionally. I will take back what cancer stole from me.

Sure, I’m always going to be more cautious. I’ll probably never trust a doctor 100%, but then again, it wouldn’t be healthy if I did.  I know it will be a long journey and there will be, and already have been, many tears. It’s hard to admit that no matter what you do to try to fight sickness and death, no matter what great NC health insurance you have, no one is immortal. There is a time for everyone on earth to die. Vulnerability is hard to face. There will always be scars from my journey. But I can’t let cancer steal my joy.  Watch out cancer; I’m gonna take back what you stole from me.