There is more to me than what you see

I blog a lot about fun & frivolous things...hand bags, clothes, Disney, etc. These are all things that I love, and booking my trip to Disney was the catalyst to get this blog and journey started. It gave me that push, but it's not what will keep me continuing on my path to healthiness. At some point, I will get to my goal size, and the novelty of wearing all these cute clothes will wear off. These are things I look forward to, and keep me going for now, but there has to be something more that will keep this weight off of me forever.

I was with my mom in the oncologist's office when she was given her stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis. It was there I learned of the history of cancer in my mother's side of the family. My grandfather died of Leukemia in his thirties. My grandmother had and beat ovarian cancer in her thirties, and later beat skin cancer. My mom passed away at 50 from cancer. My 30 year old sister has to go every 6 months to get a pap smear because she has been found with precancerous cells, in fact she needs a biopsy done AGAIN next week because they found something suspicious in her last exam.

I am scared shitless for myself. I know that my risk of getting cancer is pretty high with all of this in my family. In fact, I had a precancerous mole removed from my skin in my early twenties, thank God I don't have skin cancer (I hope). The biggest risk factors for pancreatic cancer are: a family history, smoking, and obesity. I have two out of three. For a few months after she passed, I felt hopeless. I felt it was only a matter of time that I would get cancer too. Every little twinge I felt in my stomach, I panicked. I ate & ate, figuring what was the point.

Then I woke up.

My son was not a happy "accident" after forgetting to take a birth control pill one day. My partner and I desperately wanted to have a child, but being two mommies, it wouldn't happen unless we made it happen. I read, and read, and read and researched for years on what to do. I cried and prayed about it before we even tried because we are not totally financially well off, and I was afraid it would take so many tries for me to get pregnant, and we wouldn't be able to afford it. Finally, on a random day in January of 2010, I was walking my dog on a Saturday afternoon. I was thinking, and realized I would get just enough money on my tax refund check for one try. I called up J at work and asked if we could give it a shot. She said yes, and I set my plan into motion. I took Clomid to induce ovulation, I kept track of my ovulation, I took prenatal vitamins, chose a donor from a bank and I prayed. It worked on our first try at home.

If you've kept up with my blog, it's probably plain to see that my son is my everything and the world to me. If I don't get this weight off, I will vastly increase my chances of getting cancer. I can't let this happen. If I go at the age my mom did, my son will only be 18 years old. The panic I feel when I think of this leaves me breathless. I have to do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening. If I get cancer despite being as healthy as I can be, than it was out of my hands. But if I let myself go completely, live the rest of my life obese, and then get cancer?? That will kill me. I can't do that to my son. I will not be any better than Whitney Houston who left her 18 year old daughter behind. If I get cancer because I couldn't stop eating crap, I will be just as bad as any drug addict, maybe even worse because maybe HE will follow my footsteps because I wasn't a good role model.

I did whatever I could to bring a child to this Earth, and I need to make sure I do whatever I can to stay here on this Earth to be with him.