News bulletin: I am more than half-way through my birth control pills. I took number 14 tonight. I have 12 to go. (OK, not as exciting as some of these crazy headlines. What's going on in this world lately?!)
But the potentially scarier news bulletin for us I think belongs to David. His mom got a call recently from someone who served with his dad in the Army Air Corps. David's dad's main assignment was search and rescue, but apparently he had another duty at one point. Somewhere in the late 1950s to early 1960s David's dad, the guy who called his mom, and a bunch of other guys served together and one of their jobs was cleaning up after atomic bomb tests were performed (great job, huh?).
The guy who called David's mom said that ALL of these veterans have contracted some form or other of cancer. David's dad was no exception. He was a colon cancer survivor before I ever met David. And then a few years after David and I were married, my father-in-law started to get sick again. But it wasn't a recurrance of the colon cancer. They couldn't figure out what it was. He was only diagnosed after he died. He'd had liver cancer -- a rare form, and it was unrelated to his previous colon cancer.
They had no idea what had caused either of these cancers then. In spite of an occasional cigar habit and a diet low in vegetables, my father-in-law was not an unhealthy person. But from time to time members of the family mentioned that atomic thing.
David's oldest brother died a few years after his dad did. He was never a healthy person. He had terrible childhood allergies, Tourette Syndrome (before anyone knew what that was), and the doctors put him on high doses of steroids. Later in his life he worked in a place that used lots of chemicals and developed chemical sensitivities. He was diagnosed with Osteoporosis and eventually was put on disability leave by his doctors. He died of a heart attack in his 40s.
David's sister was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer about five years ago. Although her cancer was diagnosed very early and treated promptly and thought to be gone, it came back. She went through many rounds of life-disrupting chemo that didn't help. As a last ditch effort they also did radiation. She had several surgeries, with the recovery from each successive one becoming more difficult.
A few days after Jack was born one of her old surgical incisions burst open and started oozing a foul smelling substance. She and I were in the hospital at the same time, but we couldn't visit each other. People came to visit both of us and went back and forth from room to room.
She was sad that she couldn't hold Jack the way he wanted to be held, in a standing upright position, even when he was a little tiny guy. She didn't have the strength.
She went back into the hospital around Halloween of last year with more problems with that old incision. Stuff that wasn't supposed to come out of there was coming out of there. She was scheduled for another surgery to repair her colon. The recovery from that surgery was the worst of any of them and she deteriorated from there. She came back home (she was now back living with her mom) before Christmas last year. She died there at the end of February at the age of 44.
Anyway, didn't mean to give the whole extended summary. But I wanted to give a flavor of what a hard time it has been for David and his family with so many painful losses.
David and his sister were conceived after his dad did the atomic clean-up, and some people have mentioned that the effects may be passed down to successive generations. I have not yet heard this from a doctor (nor have I asked a doctor yet), but my acupuncturist commented on this. And the guy who called David's mom mentioned it too. This certainly might be a cause behind David's sister's cancer. There was not a previous family history of ovarian cancer and our genetic counselor at our CVS said that 40 was very young to have that type of cancer.
And the atomic clean up also might be a cause for David's infertility. Now I am worried about David's health and want to find out about regular tests for him to take to make sure he is OK and stays that way. I'm a little scared about it. And I haven't let on that I am scared to him because he gets more freaked out than I do. Not good in a crisis.
But he wonders about the infertility too, so I will ask some doctors and see what I can find out. There is an organization, the National Association of Atomic Veterans that has information about health affects and how to make claims. This is one of my new research projects.
From another blog: "The National Association of Atomic Veterans, Inc.
is a nonprofit veterans
service corporation dedicated to assisting an estimated one million U. S.
veterans, from all service branches, who were first hand participants in atomic
weapons test detonations, from July 16, 1945 to Nov. 23, 1992.
Their exposure
to ionizing radiation particles has caused severe health anomalies to
themselves, and in many cases by genetic mutations of the reproductive process,
to their children."
It's been kind of a dark week. Besides this stuff one of my colleagues was laid off and it was very painful for her and for the rest of us. I am still in a state of disbelief over it. And somehow we need to fill in for what she did, and we were already stretched to the limits. Plus the whole IVF meds story. I'll try to finish that one tomorrow.
Eeek, I'm so sorry. I hope you're all okay. Maybe the docs will have some reassuring news? Hopefully?
Posted by: Aurelia | October 06, 2006 at 09:44 AM