Belated #FMF: Whole

What does it take to feel whole again? For every woman it's different. Heck, for some women the answer varies by the moment. However, a big part of the journey through cancer is beginning to feel whole again. If you're like I was, you chose to go whole 'hog' and remove as many of the body parts that were trying to kill you that you could possibly live without... For me that meant both breasts, both ovaries, both tubes, and my uterus. 

Is not obvious to anyone that I'm missing those internal organs that made me the life-giver in my relationship. However, I know they're missing and my doctor can surely tell you that they're missing too. The most noticeable ones are of course breasts. They're difficult to reconstruct on some women-me for instance-for reasons that are difficult to enumerate. However, are they really necessary to feel whole? Many women choose not to have their breast reconstructed. They'll you that they still feel very whole because it is more about the support you receive and how you feel about yourself. 

Stop.

I'm a little late joining the party, but some bloggers around the blogosphere are participating in "Five-Minute Fridays" #FMF with an assigned topic and the titled 5-minute timeline. Since I can't ever do anything on time, I'm running behind, but I plan on trying to participate in this link-up party. FMF writers at Kate Motaung's blog. What a fun way to challenge your writing!

My Little Curly Breast Cancer Awareness

My oncologist was proud of me this month when I had my 6 year check-up. I'm all clear for the next 6 months! In celebration of that as well as to commemorate both this Breast Cancer Awareness month and my new endeavor of creating illustrations, I created this...

Over on my new blog, Benedict Catholic Creations, you can find more My Little Curly coloring pages. You can even contact me for requests. I intend to offer the almost 60 illustrations I have in this series as individual pages as well as in coloring book (ebook) format. They're available as JPEG files, but I will soon make them available as PDFs. For now I have a few available for free here, on my mommy blog, and on my Creations blog. 

In addition to the My Little Curly series created for Rachel, I've illustrated a Catholic First Holy Communion book with another woman named Erika, drawn many wheeled vehicles for my Simon, and just started a series of flowers. I use my creations as a focal point for some of the handwriting pages my children use in their schooling and also plan on authoring a book (or more) featuring the My Little Curly series. I plan on offering all of them on my Creation blog eventually. I'm hoping to use this to supplement our income since we're still financially strapped since my job loss in 2013. 

If you like this Curly, like the sound of my other creations, or would just like to contact me for something else, please do so! I love hearing from you!

Say What?!?! That's Been Proven Safe for Decades!

Today I ran across two articles that left me flabbergasted and incised. One reports that giving chemotherapy to pregnant cancer patients is a novel and unheard of idea in the scientific community. Perhaps that is the case in Belgium, where this study originates, but MD Anderson has been doing it since 1992 with GREAT results. That flabbergasted me. I mean it's not as if that same site didn't do a story on a 28 year old woman diagnosed with breast cancer while 20 weeks pregnant... You know... Erika's Miracle Journey? Sometimes I wonder if the editors read their own sites. I guess it's easy for articles to get lost given the volume of articles they publish.

However, at least this isn't dangerously misleading. Although the comments... Whew... There are some times when I should just stay away from the comments sections. I'm not usually overly sensitive, but when people suggest I should have just 'changed my diet' or had better 'nutrition' and my cancer would have magically disappeared and I wouldn't have 'risked' my baby (who is 5 years old, going into 1st grade, reading, writing, and has bypassed all her age milestones) by doing dangerous chemotherapy I get a bit upset. Sorry, but 5 generations of women in my family with only the last 2 surviving doesn't seem like diet or nutrition played a big part since we span continents and centuries. If anything - especially to the 'natural' folks, the last 2 generations should be the ones that didn't survive since we have GMO foods, less healthy eating habits, higher BMIs, antibiotics, etc that the previous generations didn't have. Apparently, that comment author must subscribe the same philosophy as the next blog post... 

Another blog post trying to appear scientific completely discounted real science and medicine for 'natural' care and accused women seeking chemotherapy while pregnant of unnecessarily and flagrantly risking their unborn babies lives. That incised me! Of course chemotherapy attacks rapidly growing cells - that's what cancer is. However, what this blogger fails to realize is that while a baby is obviously rapidly growing, a baby is also protected by the placenta. The placenta is a many splendored thing. One of its greatest feats is to act as a filter between mother and baby. Only molecules of a certain size can pass through the placenta. Chemotherapy drugs tend to be large complex molecules - especially those used in pregnant women. These molecules can pass through the placenta about as well as a large rectangular block fits through a pin hole - NOT very well. While those in the natural camp profess to believe that nature has provided all the remedies we need, they tend to forget that one of the greatest of all of nature's designs is the mother's body. Women are designed to compensate, even to their own detriment, for their baby's health. We are built to protect the baby from harm and does a very good job - my earlier example of the placenta is one example. Another example is that a woman's body will pull calcium from her own bones to give to the baby if she doesn't get enough in her diet. Even a woman with hyperemesis gravida (extreme morning sickness) can have very healthy babies because of God's wonderful design of a mother's body. 

While the first article does no real harm, this article can undoubtably cause many women to lose their lives or lose their children to abortion or both mother and child may die. Had I not sought REAL science instead of pseudo science like this, it is quite possible that my daughter and I wouldn't be alive today. In general, I have nothing against natural remedies and a healthy lifestyle as opposed to constant running to the doctor all the time, I will NEVER support pseudo-science/medicine like this that basically sentences mothers and their children to death. It is false information like this that leads to people believing that abortion is necessary 'for the life of the mother'. Lies like these need to be exposed before more lives are lost. Please be sure to tell every one you can that being pregnant when diagnosed with cancer is NOT a death sentence for either the mother or the baby - BOTH CAN and SHOULD LIVE!

Here's an article from MD Anderson that gives a brief overview of the history, success, and safety of chemotherapy while pregnant.