View allAll Photos Tagged BoneCancer
I normally don't get too detailed in my descriptions but in this case I think I need to explain why I have a picture of a hairy armed man and a very well worn Livestrong bracelet. He got this bracelet online just before Lance's second tour in 2000 and at the start of his then 18 year old son’s battle with bone cancer. Back then only the followers of Lance and the tour even had a clue about the bracelets this was long before Nike and their explosive popularity. He gave me my first bracelet in 2001 during Lances second tour and the start of his sons second year of Chemo therapy. While mine has been replaced several times and given away to friends who were or had a loved battling cancer as well as some times that I did not wear one his has only left his wrist for five very bad days over the last eight and a half years.
His son survived the chemo and if you know anything of bone cancer he now had an 80 percent chance of survival. One day 2001 when the cancer battle seemed to be won he took the bracelet off it was only off his wrist for fives days during which time a follow-up visit revealed the cancer had returned. I'll never forget that morning he found out I walked past his office just as he hung up the phone he didn't need to say a word I knew! Almost without thinking and more a sign of support for himself, his family and most importantly his son he put the bracelet back on as the next rounds of chemo began and Lance was starting another tour. Lance of course one and his son appeared to be winning the battle as well and then on 7/1/02 a full year into his sons third year of chemo I received the following e-mail:
“As I look at the list on this e-mail we are an eclectic group of individuals. To me you are a great group you have all shown a concern for my feeling and a concern for my son Nathan’s health. Friday night after a very long and hard week we were told that the cancer that he has fought now for almost three years has returned again. At present we have caught this very early, but in the same breath it has returned in the middle of a very massive and harsh chemo therapy session in which we have thrown every known drug at this to stop it and have not succeeded. I have appreciated your concerns and your prayers on are behalf please keep them up they are the strength that carries us on. Over the coming weeks please bare with me as I may not seem as focused or even as responsive as I might be.”
We as his friends were devastated! Then right around the time Lance was winning his fourth tour and after many prayers and well wishes from all who knew this family the miracle came when the bone scan revealed that the cancer had again disappeared.
That was six years ago Nate is doing wonderful and now considered cancer free and the bracelet has remained on my friend Randy's wrist without fail! It even survived a nurses insistence that it be cut off for some surgery he had a while back. After a lengthy explanation and a doctors intervention he was talked back into the hospital with the assurance it would be there when he woke..
So that is my rather lengthy explanation of why I have a picture of a bracelet on my Flicker page.
I’m reading a book called The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris. It’s an attempt at a self help guide using ACT. ACT stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
I’m only a bit of the way in so the description that follows may be wrong. However my understanding of the premise of the book is that unhappiness comes from trying to control our thoughts when we really should accept what we have thought as just being some words in our head. We then get on with whatever we want to do.
Accepting thoughts as just words is called defusion and there are a number of techniques. I’ve had a go at a couple and the one that seems to work for me is to just recognise that you are thinking the thought. So when I think to myself “This task is impossible” I then have to think “I’m having the this task is impossible thought”. In other words it is not necessarily reality that the task is impossible but it is the case that I am thinking that.
Anyway this has set me to thinking about the concept of acceptance and whether acceptance is something helpful to use and accept (sic) or not.
For example I accept that my son Martin is dead as a result of primary bone cancer but I do not accept that this should be the case. I know it to be true but I do not think it should have happened and I do not accept that he or other young people should die as a result of this cancer. So I accept and I do not accept.
If I accept totally this would mean that I would do nothing. Maybe I would be happier. Maybe I would not feel so angry. Maybe I would not feel so sad.
But I don’t accept totally which is why I want to do something about it.
I do not accept that it should take a year of multiple visits to doctors before getting an x-ray or a scan. I do not accept that children in England should be more likely to die as a result of primary bone cancer than children in Germany and France.
I do not accept that there has not been an improvement in survival rates in this country for children with primary bone cancer in the last 20 years.
Instead I have got involved and pushed for earlier diagnosis. I and others have worked with the Bone Cancer Research Trust to get more accurate information in the public domain and push for earlier diagnosis. I and others have raised money for research that the drug companies won’t undertake – because the numbers are low and the profit would not be great.
Finally I know about the research that is being funded by Bone Cancer Research Trust and know that significant improvements are on the horizon. As a result I also know that it is worth not accepting and doing something to bring about change.
I’m raising money for bone cancer research by running 500 miles, the Royal Parks Half Marathon and the London Marathon.
Please don’t accept the status quo either. Please support my fundraising by sponsoring me at my fundraising page: uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MalcolmMatthews
The above text is from my blog runwithmartin.wordpress.com/
Bone cancer is a malignant (cancerous) tumor of the bone that destroys normal bone tissue. Not all bone tumors are malignant. In fact, benign (noncancerous) bone tumors are more common than malignant ones. Both malignant and benign bone tumors may grow and compress healthy bone tissue, but benign tumors do not spread, do not destroy bone tissue, and are rarely a threat to life.
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