Wednesday, November 4, 2015

We Are Not Helpless

What happens when the strongest person you know suddenly gets hurt? What if there’s nothing you can do…no bully to yell at, no Band-Aid to stick on?  What if you suddenly have to become your rock’s rock?

Many people will tell you that I am obsessed with my mom.  Not even just my best friends...I’m pretty sure that anyone who has spent more than three hours with me could tell you that I love my mom more than any living or nonliving thing on this world.  Our relationship has long transcended the mother-daughter border and carefully made its way into best friendship.  This story, however, goes back to a time when she was more my mom in the traditional sense. Mom with a capital M.  Invincible, strong, untouchable. Or so I thought.


It all started on a day which was disguised by the regularity of 7th grade life in suburbia.  I was fully immersed in a world of the cool girl lunch table, middle school crushes with long hair and skater shoes, the advance dance company, my nerdy-but-awesome magnet school, and my beloved summer swim team.  My mom, the strongest and most constant presence in my life, sat me down to tell me that she had been diagnosed with a particularly invasive case of a rare gynecological cancer.  Everything changed.  I was suddenly forced to realize that my mom was not only mom with a capital M, but was a human being who could be threatened by the same forces as anyone else.  My mom, the glue that held my family, my life, and my world together, suddenly needed us to do the same for her.  

The worst part of my mom’s cancer was the fear that came with it.  Only several hundred cases of her type of cancer have been recorded in the world, and we could not find a doctor within driving distance who had treated it before.  My mom’s treatment plan became a two-fold journey of trying to get her better as doctors tried to learn more about the disease along the way.  The only thing they seemed to be sure of was the high likeliness of spreading and recurrence.  It was finally decided that the best way to treat my mom’s case was to surgically remove it...something that sounds not-so-fun and is even less fun than it sounds.  My mom underwent invasive surgery and a difficult recovery process.  My dad, my little sister, and I did what we could to help her feel happy and comfortable as she made her way back to health.  


Though it was a while ago, I still very much remember the strong waves of helplessness that came over me each time we brought my mom to a test, biopsy, or check-up.  I am a person who likes to be in control, and this inability to control the hurt that was affecting my mom, the best human in the world, was completely infuriating.  The world wanted me to go on with life - with the lunch table, with the boys, and the dancing, and the school work, and the swimming - while the person I looked up to most was suffering with something I could not fix.

After a more recent bout with Melanoma, my mom is now officially cancer-free.  And yet, as I have grown-up and more of these untouchable, invincible rocks in my life have been affected by cancer, this feeling of helplessness remains.  What could I do about my neighbor (but more like family member) Mrs. Judy being diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer?  What could I say to my best friend as she laid teary-eyed in my bed explaining that her mom’s doctor had found a lump?


This helplessness is why I Relay.  Because you know what?  We aren’t helpless.  Relay For Life gives us a beautiful and effective way to bond with survivors, patients, and caregivers as we take steps each day toward finding a cure.  It gives us an opportunity to use the resources and networks we have to put money in the right hands and to make a real difference.  We, regular human beings - not doctors or researchers or experts, have the ability to be the catalysts for programs that research rare cancers like my mom’s and find a cure.  We have the ability to help people with cancer all over the world get support through programs such as the Hope Lodge which houses people undergoing treatment far from home, Road to Recovery which drives patients to treatments, Look Good...Feel Better which provides wigs for patients going through chemotherapy, and Reach to Recovery which helps patients seek support from survivors.  
   
What happens when the strongest person you know suddenly gets hurt?  You recognize the problem, and you fight back. In 2015, 1,658,370 new cases will be diagnosed in the US, and 589,430 people will die from cancer.
 
 It keeps happening, and I won’t stand for it. 
 I won’t sit down and let it happen.
 I refuse.
 I will fight back.   


With RelayLOVE,


Mission & Outreach Committee

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