I remember when the Stephen King movie IT came out on
TV. I won’t lie. I don’t have a phobia of clowns, but you
gotta admit…this guy will mess with your dreams!
I read an article the other day that reminded me of
Pennywise. As a matter of fact, here it
is, right here.
What’s that you say?
Doesn’t look that scary to you?
Probably not. But when I read it,
it instantly struck a note of panic deep within me. Because this article strikes home. Benjamin has had more than a few MRI’s with
contrast over his battle with Langerhans Cell HIstiocytosis. As a matter of fact, he’s had so many MRI’s
that we bought him a shirt that says “One more MRI and I’ll stick to the fridge”.
So, when I read that the metal contrast that they use in MRI’s
has been found inside the brain tissue of patients YEARS after their last MRI,
I begin to worry. You see, I have long
worried that there is something “wrong” with Benjamin. Not recurrent cancer wrong, but something off. Benjamin has always been a very
intellectually driven individual. Some
of that is probably because he spent most of his younger years (2-4) primarily
around doctors and nurses and not children.
But my paranoia runs deeper than that.
Last year Benjamin’s math teacher approached me and let me know that she
was beginning to be worried with Benjamin’s progress. Seems that during his timed tests, Benjamin
insisted on going straight down a row instead of skipping around to problems he
knew. His teacher had already told him
multiple times to do this technique, but he would not. When I talked to Benjamin about it, he said
that he knew he was supposed to do it that way, but it just felt WRONG and he
couldn’t do it.
Now I’ll spare you several paragraphs of boring stories
about Benjamin and I’ll cut right to the chase.
I am fairly certain that Benjamin has something close to OCD. I am not the only one to have noticed these tendencies,
and they have been noted in the academic environment and outside of it, which
makes me think that this is a holistic problem.
We do not have an official diagnosis for Benjamin for two reasons. One, there is not a neuropsychologist in the
hospital that Benjamin goes to. Two,
since we have begun living a “normal” life as a family, I am hesitant to drag
us back into the medical sphere.
You see, it’s a catch 22 as it were. I know something is wrong. Counseling and/or therapy could probably
help. But there is a part of me that
desperately wants to stick my head in the sand and say “NO! Everything is FINE! He beat cancer, and we are a normal family
now, damn it!”
And therein lies the problem for post-cancer
survivors. We desperately want to live
the new “normal” lifestyle. However,
just like in IT, years later our own personal Pennywise’s come knocking at our
door scaring the crap out of us. “What’s
that lump on his head?!” “Could it be
recurring cancer or did he just bump his head?” “Why can’t my son run as fast
as the other children his age?” “Is it because gadolinium
build ups on his brain have damaged his motor
functions, or is he just out of shape.”
And on and on Pennywise whispers to us in the night.
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