Brain Cancer

I normally don't discuss current events, and believe me, it is hard to keep my mouth shut sometimes, but I also plan on using this to be a scrapbook for Emmy. As such, I think she should realize what was going on in the world when she was this age.

Gas is really expensive for us. It might be higher for her when she is buying, God help me even imagine her driving a car, but for us, it has increased a great deal. I am thrilled to find it for $3.60 a gallon.

And this week, Senator Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The fact that the doctors aren't telling the media about surgery but only radiation and chemotherapy leads one to believe that it is inoperable. Love him or hate him, no family deserves cancer. And from my experience, I can say that no family deserves this dreaded cancer.

The reports say that 9,000 people get the worst tumor--gliobastoma multiforme (which Momma had). I can't help but feel that number is really low. I think there are lots more out there that are misdiagnosed. A former coworker has been 'sick' since I met him in 2000. They diagnosed him with fibromialgia, chronic fatigue, even a discussion of MS, and only recently discovered a brain tumor--that had become a stage 4--glioblastoma. My uncle Richard was diagnosed after he fell when visiting his family in Colorado. Originally, it was thought to be his heart but after testing, the horrible news was discovered. Senator Kennedy was diagnosed after a seizure. It leads me to wonder how many people had tumors and died of other causes, a seizure made them fall into a lake and drown, made them have a fatal car accident or lead them to a manic state that they committed suicide.

In one moment, I think that no one shouted from the news when my sweet mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Fox News and CNN didn't show her friends crying at work or me almost passing out as I told my dearest friends the horrible news, and her life was just as important. But, maybe this dreaded diagnosis for him will help bring attention to this horrible cancer with patients that have no more hope for their cure than those who were diagnosed THIRTY YEARS AGO.

One day, this might be a disease that Emmy can know of as a disease of the past. And she can say that her YiaYia is smiling that no one else will have to suffer.