Tuesday - On Tumors and Tigers
Mar. 27th, 2007 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday over my morning coffee, I was thinking about my stepsister's son, Reese, who is having surgery today to remove his right kidney. Late last week his doctor discovered a tumor on this kidney the size of a tennis ball. Once removed, the tumor and the will be biopsied. It is fully expected that he has cancer. I will call my father this evening to see how everything went, and meanwhile will pray for the best.
Reese turned two in January, which makes him three months younger than my own son. A tumor that size on a child that small makes it as big as, or bigger than, the kidney it took over. They believe he has something called Wilms' Tumor, a form of kidney cancer that usually affects children under the age of 6. The doctors say they are lucky it was caught this early. Usually, these fast-growing tumors are the size of a softball by the time anyone discovers them.
I can only imagine what his mother, Courtney, must be feeling. I've talked to my father and her mother, but not her since she has other things to deal with.
"Tell her my thoughts and prayers are with them," I told That Woman My Father is Married To. She rarely gets shook up about anything, but her voice was trembling a little when she told me about Reese. I don't get along with her all that well, but I genuinely like her daughter. Even if I didn't like Courtney, I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
"Please, lots of prayers," That Woman said, "Lots and lots of prayers."
To tell the truth, I don't know Courtney that well; we were both adults by the time our parents met and married, and she lives around Fort Worth, which is about 250 miles north of me. I only know that she and her husband are good people that I admire a lot.
I can't help but get a lump in my throat when I look at my own son. This is too close to home. Children with cancer are supposed to be strangers that you read about in an appeal to give to St. Jude's Hospital, or to buy the Christmas cards they draw to raise money for certain cancer hospitals. A kid with cancer is a picture of some smiling bald-headed child that you don't know who happens to be fighting a killer inside. You feel safely sad for them, and maybe drop your change in a collection tin to benefit them. But this sadness isn't safe and distant. This is the cousin my son's age that I've expected him to play with at family get-togethers. This is a child that I know and buy Christmas presents for.
I did some research on Wilms' Tumor. It has a 5-year survival rate of 92%, which I suppose is very good. But I know if it were my son, I would hear that as saying that my child has an 8% chance of dying before he turns 7. I wouldn't care about a piddling 5-year survival rate -- I would want to know what the he-gets-to-grow-up-and-father-children-of-his-own survival rate is. What is 5 years in the course of an 80-year human life? Who are doctors kidding when they assume 5 years is the only victory that counts? A parent wants to count much, much higher than that.
The love for a child transforms a person. I went 35 years without any children, so I was surprised at just how much it changed me and how much stronger it turned out to be than I ever could have imagined. I expected it would be like the love I had for my own parents, but it's much deeper and more intense than that.
Nature demands that we love our children so strongly that we would do anything to ensure their survival. From the earliest days of mankind, people have thrown themselves in front of saber-toothed tigers and attacked marauding mammoths with clubs to protect their children. This instinct to protect, and the fierce love that fuels it, was put into place to see to the continuation of our species. But how can you throw yourself in front of a tumor? How can you beat cancer back with a club?
You can't.
Instead, you trust the surgeon to cut your child open and remove the deadly thing growing inside of him. You trust the oncologist to administer chemotherapy that will make your child weak and sick and bald, and hope that it does the trick of saving his life. Time after time you make yourself take your child to visit people that will cause him pain and give him poison, and you hold him and try to comfort him while he cries from their ministrations.
Throwing yourself in front of a saber-toothed tiger would be easier, I think.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
EDIT: Reese came through the surgery all right and is in recovery. He will stay in the hospital for the rest of the week at least. The initial assesment is that the tumor is malignant and is probably stage 2 cancer, meaning that the the cancer extended beyond the kidney but had not spread to the lymph nodes and was completely excised today. They will know more after biopsy results are back on Thursday.
Reese turned two in January, which makes him three months younger than my own son. A tumor that size on a child that small makes it as big as, or bigger than, the kidney it took over. They believe he has something called Wilms' Tumor, a form of kidney cancer that usually affects children under the age of 6. The doctors say they are lucky it was caught this early. Usually, these fast-growing tumors are the size of a softball by the time anyone discovers them.
I can only imagine what his mother, Courtney, must be feeling. I've talked to my father and her mother, but not her since she has other things to deal with.
"Tell her my thoughts and prayers are with them," I told That Woman My Father is Married To. She rarely gets shook up about anything, but her voice was trembling a little when she told me about Reese. I don't get along with her all that well, but I genuinely like her daughter. Even if I didn't like Courtney, I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
"Please, lots of prayers," That Woman said, "Lots and lots of prayers."
To tell the truth, I don't know Courtney that well; we were both adults by the time our parents met and married, and she lives around Fort Worth, which is about 250 miles north of me. I only know that she and her husband are good people that I admire a lot.
I can't help but get a lump in my throat when I look at my own son. This is too close to home. Children with cancer are supposed to be strangers that you read about in an appeal to give to St. Jude's Hospital, or to buy the Christmas cards they draw to raise money for certain cancer hospitals. A kid with cancer is a picture of some smiling bald-headed child that you don't know who happens to be fighting a killer inside. You feel safely sad for them, and maybe drop your change in a collection tin to benefit them. But this sadness isn't safe and distant. This is the cousin my son's age that I've expected him to play with at family get-togethers. This is a child that I know and buy Christmas presents for.
I did some research on Wilms' Tumor. It has a 5-year survival rate of 92%, which I suppose is very good. But I know if it were my son, I would hear that as saying that my child has an 8% chance of dying before he turns 7. I wouldn't care about a piddling 5-year survival rate -- I would want to know what the he-gets-to-grow-up-and-father-children-of-his-own survival rate is. What is 5 years in the course of an 80-year human life? Who are doctors kidding when they assume 5 years is the only victory that counts? A parent wants to count much, much higher than that.
The love for a child transforms a person. I went 35 years without any children, so I was surprised at just how much it changed me and how much stronger it turned out to be than I ever could have imagined. I expected it would be like the love I had for my own parents, but it's much deeper and more intense than that.
Nature demands that we love our children so strongly that we would do anything to ensure their survival. From the earliest days of mankind, people have thrown themselves in front of saber-toothed tigers and attacked marauding mammoths with clubs to protect their children. This instinct to protect, and the fierce love that fuels it, was put into place to see to the continuation of our species. But how can you throw yourself in front of a tumor? How can you beat cancer back with a club?
You can't.
Instead, you trust the surgeon to cut your child open and remove the deadly thing growing inside of him. You trust the oncologist to administer chemotherapy that will make your child weak and sick and bald, and hope that it does the trick of saving his life. Time after time you make yourself take your child to visit people that will cause him pain and give him poison, and you hold him and try to comfort him while he cries from their ministrations.
Throwing yourself in front of a saber-toothed tiger would be easier, I think.
EDIT: Reese came through the surgery all right and is in recovery. He will stay in the hospital for the rest of the week at least. The initial assesment is that the tumor is malignant and is probably stage 2 cancer, meaning that the the cancer extended beyond the kidney but had not spread to the lymph nodes and was completely excised today. They will know more after biopsy results are back on Thursday.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 07:29 pm (UTC)Thanks for the prayers.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 07:31 pm (UTC)Wilms' Tumor
Date: 2007-03-27 11:59 pm (UTC)Best wishes. You're exactly right -- no matter the positive statistics, it's excruciating. And once your child is diagnosed with Wilms, which happens 1/10,000 births ... well, statistics stop meaning anything, right?
"Lizard Eater"
http://uuminister.blogspot.com
no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 01:17 am (UTC)I'm so sorry. I'm sending a ton of positive thoughts and healing energies your family's way!!!
no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 04:07 am (UTC)*HUGS*
TW
no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 09:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 01:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 06:28 pm (UTC)Both to you, Reese, and his mommy.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-28 08:09 pm (UTC)I'm sending lots of Ian hugs and kisses too. Somehow they make me feel better and I hope they'll make you and your family feel better too.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-29 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-29 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-31 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-31 02:36 pm (UTC)Thanks for the prayers. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-04-03 01:34 pm (UTC)my prayers are with the family...
no subject
Date: 2007-04-03 08:55 pm (UTC)Thanks for the prayers.