This is a continuation from my Rhabdomyosarcoma Journal Entry Part #1: Coping.
A Need for Inspiration:
On my first visit to the oncologist’s office, there was a tall gentleman there talking with his wife. He introduced himself as “Larry” and quickly explained the doctor was great.
The Doctor had done wonders for Larry when no one else could and he was fit as a fiddle. He also said:
“Keep active, whatever it Continue reading
The combination of graduating High School and being diagnosed with cancer was like a double-whammy to my social life.
Not that I had an extensive one but I went from being very busy every day after school to nothing within 10 days of the end of high school.
So, today’s post draws on two essays I’ve written previously. It tries to address two things:
A Skill to Cope:
For some people, cancer can be a very lonely experience. Their peers withdraw and they’re not quite sure how to interact with this individual.
However, there are Continue reading
Doctors throw a lot of information at you when you’re first diagnosed with any illness.
So, I found that while I’d hear a lot of information in the office, I’d have to process it along with the information booklets and leaflets I’d been handed, at a later time…usually, when sipping a cold soda on the back deck, or up in my room while listening to music.
An important note here is that every person’s experience with chemotherapy & radiation is different. What I experienced was how my body reacted. You could talk to 5 other patients also getting chemo or radiation and they’d describe to you different side effects that they were having.
I don’t want anyone to think that just because I had the side effects below (and ones that you’ll see in future blogs), it does not mean that every patient gets them. We’re all different in how our bodies adapt to treatment.
My parents actually clung to the Continue reading
Okay, before I start into this next article, I need to explain the long pause between the writing of my Rhabdomyosarcoma Journals…
…This February (2011) was a roller coaster ride. It started with an unexpected hospitalization & horrible ice dams in my condo while I was in the hospital…Then it was a vacation, at Sugarloaf, which was a blast. I’ll get more into the hospitalization thing as I get through these blogs.
Timeline-wise, I haven’t gotten to the complications of treatment part, but I’ll get there.
This blog was very difficult to write, as it brought back many strong memories for me and tears. In the moments described below, my life changed from the innocence of youth to the reality of fighting a serious disease.
There is that limbo time that everyone has between first surgery and the ramping up of treatments. I was on a mixed-message high during that limbo time.
On the one hand, I was Continue reading
Watch Kimberly’s LIVE Interview right NOW with Patrick Harb!
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RhabdomyosarcomaInfo.com, LivingPink.info & Kapow Models founder, international model, Kimberly Edwards will have an exclusive 1 hour LIVE interview with Patrick Harb on February 4th @ 7:00 – 8:00 pm EST.
I will be discussing so many aspects of what’s going on in my life right now! My modeling & acting career, the modeling agency I just launched – Kapow Models & Talent Agency, being the host of Model Rage International, my jewelry line “K, Turn Around” Jewelry, my upcoming Cooking with Kimberly Show, the “Living Pink Movement” for Breast Cancer, my new charity RhabdomyosarcomaInfo.com…and Continue reading
One of the most difficult things with being diagnosed with Cancer is the change in relationships that inevitably takes place.
In some instances, it makes them stronger… in others, it breaks them apart. My diagnosis came at an awkward time when typically the teenager in me was yearning to be free of my parents and off to college… but I couldn’t be THAT teenager. Like it or not, I had to be cared for.
Today’s post has a lot to do with where I came from before things became discombobulated and how that loss of control crept into my life. And more importantly, who would be there for me?
As a teenager, I had a Continue reading
It’s quiet and dark… I hear something tearing around downstairs – to the scratching post, then bat a mousie around the living room… Chirps of excitement and then a wicked dash upstairs- turn the corner (shredding carpet through the turn) and in one adept leap, she’s on my bed, on my chest, panting… purring.. and she is happy. Arista has done her morning triathlon and it’s time for a 5 min nap nestled on my chest- usually leaning against my face.
Ellie on the other hand- she’s snoring in the bed next to me. I should clarify- she’s a cat too- only instead of being one and a half, she’s 13 with kidney failure. She looks up as I pet her back- she too begins to purr. The rumbling now filling my chest from the young one and vaguely reverberating from the bed next to me. This is how mornings should be- relaxing. A time to take stock and enjoy the little things.
I shuffle myself to a seated position on the side of the bed- but only after having a 2 minute discussion with Arista on the fact that she needs to move. Her passive aggressive stare at my toes wiggling under the sheets is her way of saying “you can afford another 5 minutes.”. No I can’t. My feet touch the floor, I feel the creaks… it’s not the floor boards, it’s my arthritis. Yep- it’s true, as ya get older things tend to ache a bit more but no matter. And what’s this inhumanity? I have to Continue reading
Information about rhabdomyosarcoma can be confusing at best. Here is some information that might help you that is very clinical in nature, but we have tried to summarize the main points and give you the meat and potatoes of the study.
The article linked below looks at the different subtypes of rhabdomyosarcoma. There are 2 main ones – Embryonal and Alveolar.
Most of the Alveolar ones have a genetic abnormality called Continue reading
Researchers are looking to find better ways of diagnosing and treating Rhabdomyosarcoma.
The treatments are pretty nasty and the long term side effects are not good either. So, we look at the genetics and find things that might predict how the cancer might behave at the moment it is diagnosed.
The article below explains how microRNA-206 levels in the tumour can do just that. If you have lower Continue reading
Dad had his follow up appointment after a small biopsy of a marble-sized lump was taken from his triceps muscle on the back of his arm…
“Mr. Turner, you have a rare cancer and you have 4 1/2 months to live.”
That’s pretty much all my father heard in that conversation that was so mind-boggling to him, and that’s what we heard on the phone from my mother…
Very difficult news to hear and unfathomable in your mind when you think you’re only dealing with something that’s a marble in size.
The oncology specialist we saw a few days later in Hamilton, Ontario told my father, “This will kill you, Mr. Turner.”
My father said…”I WILL beat this disease…you will see…mark my words.”
The words my father spoke drove him every single day to fight rhabdomyosarcoma.
With every Continue reading
Rhabdomyosarcoma Info
