My SD is a luekemia survivor. Here s brief synopisis of her story...BM and DH were going through thier nasty divorce after BM cheated on DH and got pregnant by her lover and now current Husband. BM was doing anything and everything she could to keep DH from the kids because he was not paying child support on baby # 3 whom was not his kid. So she accused DH of child abuse because SD was always covered in bruises. DH did not think anything of it because she was a clumsy kid but to cover his ass he took her to the doctor too get an opinion as to if these bruises were from normal 3 year old tumbles or ABUSE...like maybe someone eles was abusing her to frame him but the doctor was concerned and did some labwork and found out she had cancer. They caught it early, probably one of the blessings of thier nasty divorce, had BM not been acusing DH of abuse they might not have caught it until she got sick or went in for a 4 year old check up then would have had it for a year before t was notcied...So she got treatmetn right away. Responed well, went in to remission right away, spent a lot of time in and out of theh ospital because of the aggressive treatments when she was three and four was done with hospitalization by the age of 5 had the standard treatment for two years after remission for a total of three years. She was done with treatment by the time she entered 1st grade. Then had 5 years of observation and remission before being officially declared cancer free in February of 2004...it has bee 5 years since she was declared cancer free and this child still has this poor me I had cancer attitude. Of course so do her parents, they cant get over how scared they were- I get that. They can't get over how awful treatment and not know was- I get that!...But they act like it ruined thier lives forever. My SD right now in some attention seeking remarks claims she cannot remember anythign in her childhood but being int he hospital. She tells people she spend most her childhood inthe hospital...Lets see sheis still a kid. She is 15 and sepnt a week here, a weel ther, a month here a a mnth there off and on a few times for two years...That really is not her whole childhood, that is 2 years max, what about the other 13 years of her life? And dont get me going on all the things that this child has got to do and got given to her because she had cancer. She claims to have blocked out all of 3years old on thru 5th grade because of her cancer treatment. WTF her cancer treatment did not last that long.
Shouldn't she be happy she survived. She does have guilt which I get that she beat it and her frineds fromt he hospital died. But each cancer story is different. Hers I think is a good one because she did survive, WHy can't they focus on the miracle of that? OF course her moving on is not helped by BM...BM and DH both have exaggerated the extent of her treatment and suffering. I am soory if I do not sound sympathetic here but I know kids who died from the same cancer SD had and thier suffereing and treatmetn was way worse than hers. I have seen a lot fo chidhood cancer cases and for SD hers was an easy stroy in comaprison but dont tel her or DH or BM that becasue hers was the worst ever, the saddest, this child lost her hair one time from luekemia and her hair dgre back a little and fell out again...so the chemo made her hair fall out twice. I know because I knew them before DH and I even dated, my mother and crazy MIL are best friends...so they cant tell me I was not there and do not knwo what they went through. I saw ti as an outsider and know they are exagerating. DH says she lost her hair 3 or 4 times. BM says she lost her hair 5 times actually teh amount increases each time the story is told, so I think its up to 7 or 8 times...But you catch my drift...and while SD was sick and going thgouth this BM told her twin brother SS that sissy could go to sleep and die at any moment...YEAH YOU TELL THAT TO A THREE YEAR OLD...See why I have called this woman crazy in other posts...And the sad part of it is SD was never on her deaht bed, she started beating the caner form the get go so it was really SICK of BM to say that to her kids...and she didn't stop saying that until treatement, and remission was over...Even now taht SD is medically declared cancer free BM tells her kids it cans till come back...Ok the reality is it could, which is why she has lab work done yearly and having one cancer as a child can presidpose youto more when you are older, BUT REALLY IS IT NECCESSARY TO MAKE YOUR KIDS KLIVE IN FEAR THAT THEIR SISTER COULD DIE, when she is alive and surviving.
Yeah BM likes the attention drom SD.s cancer so much that she even tells theother kids when they are sick , it coulc be cancer...And now BM gets to be the cancer queen with her own "cancer" I put it in quotatiosn because supposedly this woman who lives a bloc away from me and aI see on a regular basis has suffered three types of cancer in the last five years...I'm sorry but wouldnt' someone with cancer that much be sick, be on chemo drugs that make you sick or something and this cancer filled woman is does not appear to be sick at all, she is the healthiest damn cancer sufferer I have ever seen and I am currently watching family memebrs suffer from stage 4 cancer, so I dont get how you can have three types of cancer and not be sick when I see how sick these people are from one type...

ANY way ALL BM's issues aside, HOW DO I HELP SD move on and be happy that she is alive. I hate seeing such a bright, talented once happy go lucky kid be so sad because she is supposedly havign flash backs from her cancer hospitalization...flash backs or being force fed the story over and over again so her memories are not her own but her moehter version of them...Seriously how many of us remember being 3? How much of it is real and how much of it is attention seeking. I warned peole years ago that they needed to identify this kid as being herself, not as being the kid with cancer because she is more than that, but years later and she is stil the kid who had cancer and really nothing else in her mind.It bothers me that this kid says her whole childhood was robbed, when I think she had a kick ass childhood even with the cancer, and that the cancer only affected a few years, early years that one normally does not remember and all she can focus on is those bad memories from that time...Its like time froze for her, and its about time it unfreezes so this teenager can move on before she is an adult frozen in time. It bother me...I guess because I see cancer patients and the cancer may rob them of thier helath and thier life but they never lose thier spirit, and this child has lost her spirit...and she has no need to. She even had more spunk and spirit when she was undergoing treatment now. So how does this little fighter, and survivor grow up to be so sad...I hate seeing her like this...I hate it too because she sruvived, damn it rejoice and be happy in that...I lost a friend in highschool to cancer, and it was a sad story she went in to the doctor because she was pregnant, was all worrid about telling her dad that she was knocked up and founf out that she had cancer too, she wanted to save her unborn baby so had low dose chemo, but she and the baby died right afte dleivering him and he was still born in..so sad to watch as a teen, its one thing to be a pregnant teen but a pregnant teen who is dying and my friend never once gave up hope or her spirit not once, not even in her last breath...which was to ask if she could hold him and see if he had all fingers nad toes...she wanted to know that even though he was still born he was not deforeme from her chemo...
SO WITH THAT SAD STORY SAID...IT PISSES ME OFF THAT SD'S STORY IS A HAPPY ONE OF SURVIVAL AND SHE CAN"T BE HAPPY. she just focusses on how bad it was to be a kid with cancer, well dear darling SD..it could have been worse, YOU COULD NOT BE ALIVE...AM I BITCH TO WANT TO TELL HER TO GET OVER IT< MOVE ON BE fortunate that you did not die from it and rejoic in life...
sorry for the typoes here I have a 2 year old on my lap helping me...