Tuesday, February 5, 2008

How'd you catch Leukemia?

I do not blame myself for getting Leukemia. I am one of the healthiest people I know. I don't smoke, drink, use drugs or do anything that would put me at risk for getting cancer. I rarely eat fast food. I'm not a fan of fatty steaks. I like my vegetables and fruits. I take my daily vitamins.

I guess if I look at all of my friends and family, it's probably best that I was the lucky one that caught the L-bug because my body is in great shape to handle the beast that is chemotherapy.

So it's always funny/frustrating to me when people lecture me on how I got Leukemia. Here's a few things that I've heard:
1. You spend too much time in front of your laptop at work and the computer waves mutated your stem cells.
2. You stress too much.
3. You lived near a refinery when you were growing up.
4. You went to Tahoe and it was too cold which caused your body to produce cancer.
5. You don't eat enough beets.

I'm sure other patients hear possible causes like these too, but I hope no one internalizes them. That would really suck if I started feeling like it was my fault and I could have prevented this from happening to me. The way I've come to accept Leukemia is that it just occurred randomly. One poor stem cell got confused on how to make a normal blood cell. It made a mistake and started making cancer cells because it read the instructions wrong. That teeny tiny mistake led to my debacle of 2007. That pretty much sums it up for me. I am not going to beat myself up over how this happened.

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