Baldies' Blog began originally in the UK by a 26 year old journalist with a blood cancer on a mission to inform the world about bone marrow donation.

He has since died, and I took on the cause of making cancer care more transparent for everybody.

Cancer is a disease that will touch everybody through diagnosis or affiliation: 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed and 1 in 3 woman will hear those words, "You Have Cancer."

I invite you to read how I feel along my journey and
how I am continuing to live a full life alongside my Hodgkin's lymphoma, with me controlling my cancer, not my cancer controlling me.

I hope that "Baldies' Blog" will prepare you to handle whatever life sends you, but especially if it's the message, "You Have Cancer."

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Fleeing Hogder Returned


The Thirteen year old Hodgkin's Lymphoma patient that fled with his mother after a court ordered mandatory chemotherapy has been returned, voluntarily, by his mother.
Since his return was voluntary no crimincal charges will be made against the mother.
Maybe they just wanted to go on a quick vacation together before starting a nasty route of chemotherapy?
Jokes aside, this is a very important example of the fear associated with diagnosis and how it affects not only the patient but the family involved.
In this instance, not only was the family extremely involved, but the judicial system had to be used to ensure the child received life saving standard care for Hodgkins, without which he had a 5% chance of survival.
What human instinct exactly would make a mother run with her child for their protection when the odds of survival without traditional therapy is 5%?
It seems paradoxical. It seems like a huge miscalculation of the mother's instinct to deny what is clearly life preserving care.
However, like most things, how they appear to be are probably not how they actually are.
This mother presents a devastatingly strong example of the fear associated with the diagnosis of cancer and it's treatment.
Her fight or flight instinct was tagged to save her child by protecting him from the medical establishment.
What I have heard and read publicly,as I am not closely familiar with the case, is that the parents were knowing and accepting of their child disease and diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma. They were not denying him treatment because they wer in denial he needed treatment.
They were refusing treatment, because they felt their route was either better or safer for their son. This thought motivated the mother to move a sick child from a comfortable home he knew in hopes of accessing the best treatment for him.
No person can judge or shun those actions.
However, looking at the big pictire, beyond the snac=tching, running, and denying treatment red lighted for the media, is a clear, common problem among families' facing cancer.
It is the fear that the medical system can not really handle us. It is the fear that our best specialists really have no idea what they are doing.
This fear is potentiated by the extreme powerlessness we are suddenly feeling over our own bodies or in this istance, the body of a child she has raised, fed, and protected for thirteen years.
How scary to suddenly be told that their is no longer anything you as a mother can really do to help aid in your child's fight against cancer. How terrible to be told that your child's only chance of survival resides in a medical system thta she appears not only to be downright suspisious of but is plagued with fear regarding the care they give.
What this woman and family needs is some empowerment, some guidance, something that says, "Yes, our ideas can coexist together in harmony for the betterment of your son. Chemotherapy is a starting point that we administer here at the hospital, but there are a plethora of other methods you can take has a parent to ensure little Daniel will be as well as he can possibly be during the treatment and survive to live a long healthy life."
I think if the two opposing positions in healthcare, the natural vs. the standard, were allowed to coexist in some manner the fear of traditional treatment would be lessened since paatients and families are no longer rendering complete control of a loved one, often a child, to a professional team of clinical strangers.
For more information about Daniel read: http://health.yahoo.com/news/ap/us_forced_chemo.html

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