Every path with cancer starts somewhere.
Ours started around the time our daughter came home for Christmas 2013 after a challenging semester abroad in Beirut. She had begun to have some eating problems while there that everyone kept attributing to the stress she was under. She did not normally throw up when under stress or struggle to eat or lose weight. Her health became her biggest challenge on that Global Learning Term and somehow with a ¨bandaid¨ pill from a local doctor to help calm her stomach so she could keep her food down, she made some improvement. With friends praying and a timely, encouraging visit from her Dad, she seemed to turn a corner. We were proud that she persevered through very trying circumstances - cultural, linguistic, health, political, work load, etc.
When she got to Spain, a lot of the symptoms stopped. That made us think all the more that it was stress related. (And isn´t everything?!) I was concerned & anxious to find ways to help her manage stress & to have a physical. In the first week she was here she said casually, ¨I have a little ball behind my belly button...feel it?¨ She saw a Dr. and our story began to unravel...
Was I concerned about her health? Yes.
Did I think she had anything serious? No. It never crossed my mind.
And that is how I think it starts for a lot of us.
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