Work, Life, Work, Life, Work, Life July 16, 2008
Posted by eponymy in Children, Family, Life, Love, Parenting, childhood cancer, osteosarcoma.Tags: osteosarcoma, work life balance
1 comment so far
I find myself in a position where work and life are nearly impossible to balance. I want to spend every moment possible with my children. I cannot know what the future holds and my son with osteosarcoma may be an old man someday looking back on this struggle as a small blip in his life. He may also be watching his brother go through elementary school from above with the wings of an angel. One of the things that enables parents to leave the sides of their children to go to work is that they know they will have time when the evening comes to play with them and watch them grow. They know when the weekend comes there will be camping, swimming, baseball, frisbee. They know there will be time to look to the heavens and look for constellations and create new ones. When your child is diagnosed with cancer or some other life threatening disease your world is changed in an instant. You now realize that there is so much you want to share with your child. So many things you want to see them experience and experience with them. You want them to have time to create themselves. You want to see the person they will become. As a parent you want to witness as much of their life as possible. You can’t though. You turn them over to others to help them grow. You bring them to school and trust that their teachers will educate them usng methods that will stir their imagination in ways you cannot. You let them go out and play with their friends hoping they will learn the meaning of friendship and fun. When your child is diagnosed with a life threatening disease like osteosarcoma you are now looking to doctors, nurses and hospitals to protect them and make them well. You realize that you would give absolutely anything to get your child to adulthood. You realize that there really is something that you would give your life for, if only you could. You find yourself standing on a beach screaming to the heavens through a river of tears, “Take me!!! Please take me!!! Not my child!!!”
The next day you have to go to work. You have to keep your job so you have health insurance. You can’t spend the day looking into your child’s eyes as they lay in a hospital. You can’t play frisbee or go swimming with your child all day on the day before a new chemotherapy treatment starts. A chemotherapy that might save their life or make their last 3 months on this plane miserable. You have to go to work. You realize that you are lucky because you actually have a job that has decent insurance. You have to go to work so you keep your job because you have to make sure you have a place to live and your other children can have some sense of normalcy. You have to go to work and stuggle to put as much effort into it that you can. You know that you are not giving 100% to your employer. You hope you are keeping up enough to keep your jop. You have heard stories of others who lost their jobs and how difficult it made things for them. You also know that what is important is your child and their life. Life, work, life, work, life work, life, work – You feel the scale tipping in the direction of life. How long can you keep the scale tipped at such an angle? How long can your employer and coworkers allow the scale to stay so steep?
Does it matter?
Cranky Dad May 9, 2008
Posted by eponymy in Children, Family, Life, Love, Parenting, blog, childhood cancer, osteosarcoma.Tags: Add new tag
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I find myself being the dad I don’t want to be. I want to be the Ward Cleaver dad who comes home and dispences wonderful advice to attentive children. I want to be the dad who has trhe time to throw balls with his boys and plays board games. Even more so because one of my boys is fighting for his life with osteosarcoma. Instead I find myself snapping at them for really stupid things. I find myself telling them more forcefully than I intend to, “Get in the car, now!” then chastising them for not doing it quick enough. Is it the stress of having a job that has very specific and tight deadlines? Is it the stress of facing huge medical bills? Is it the stress of any number of things that make up life? Or am I a lousy dad? I have to figure this out before I poison my children with a cranky dad. I love them so much, but, why do I see the look of fear on their face when the think they have disappointed me. I will keep working on it. I will find a way to relieve the stress I am feeling before it impacts them. At least I am aware so that keeps me from being the monster I don’t want to be.
osteosarcoma March 20, 2008
Posted by eponymy in Children, Family, Life, Love, Parenting, blog, childhood cancer, osteosarcoma, osteosarcoma awareness, sarcoma awareness.Tags: cancer, childhood cancer, Life, NED, osteosarcoma, sarcoma
1 comment so far
My son was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2006 at the age of 6. It was a devastating diagnosis and sent me scrambling to the internet to research it. At the time the only thing I knew about osteosarcoma was that it had taken the life of Terry Fox. I googled the term and there on the first page was the information no parent ever wants to see – “3 months after diagnosis Lotsy died,”"2 months after diagnosis my precious Sherry passed away,”"6 months after we found out that our little Mimi had osteosarcoma she entered heaven.” Tears were running down my cheeks as I started sobbing. The I saw “Our 3 legged dog Charly passed awat away 6 months after the amputation of his leg because of osteosarcoma.” I stopped crying and looked back on the other Google entries and realized I was reading about peoples’ dogs and not their children. I know that is still sad, but, I started to laugh at myself. I changed the search terms and started to find more encouraging articles and sites. It seems like that moment was a long time ago and my life has changed a great deal since then. I was talking with a medical professional recently and realized just how much I have learned about osteosarcoma and sarcomas. She commented that I knew more about the disease and treatments than many doctors. The most important thing I know is that today is better than yesterday and my son is NED and that means he has No Evidence of Disease.
Rudeness March 20, 2008
Posted by eponymy in Life, blog.add a comment
I once met a very interesting woman who pointed out something to me that really made me think. She told me that all of the worlds ills were caused by one thing and one thing only. She stated that when every problem involving humanity was distilled down to its’ root cause that cause was rudeness. She maintained that every issue whether it was diseases like cancer or complex issues of hunger and poverty were either caused by rudeness or prevented from being solved by rudeness. It is easy to see that your ride to work was made difficult because someone rudely cut you off. It was more difficult to see how rudeness effected bigger issues. As I thought about it I realized that because of rudeness wars are started and resources are taken away from medicine. Because of rudeness children go to bed hungry and die of malnutrition. I tried to point out other causes like greed, lack of education, lack of resources, etc. and everything I said she was able to connect to rudeness. I ask you to think about it and if you can come up with any root cause of a problem that cannot be replaced with rudeness or that rudeness does not prevent us from providing resources to I would love to hear it.
In the beginning was the word March 20, 2008
Posted by eponymy in blog.add a comment
I am often told that I seem to have a great deal to say to the world. I guess this is the beginning of my own personal shoutout to the world. If anything I say is of value to you I am glad and hope my words are of benefit. If you disagree with anything I write I welcome your civilised comments and encourage discourse. If you think I have written something that causes you to see red and be so angry that you cannot contain rudeness then it is time for you to read someone else’s blog.
