Karma

I was browsing on Facebook today on my lunch break and I saw something that seriously pissed me off for a number of reasons.

There was a story that one of the local news stations posted about Lance Armstrong and how his wins had been taken away from him. At the end of the post, it asked for opinions on if he deserved it or not. Of course I have my own opinions about it (which I’ll get into in a minute…) so I decided to read through them. There was one lady that posted three times: “Yep!!”, “Ppl he could EASILY pass a pee test… there is a little thing called synthetic urine… you can buy it over the counter… passing a pee test is the easiest thing in the world!!!!!”, and my favorite “& he probably GOT cancer from shooting up steroids!!”

Now, to understand why that last comment got to me so much and how much it really upset me, I need to go into personal details. This isn’t going to be an easy thing for me to write about so if I seem like I’m rambling, I apologize now.

 

My freshman year of high school was insane. I went to three schools that year. I moved in with a dad that I didn’t really know very well and then in with a stepmother that I didn’t know any better than I knew my dad. I moved from West Virginia to Ohio and left all my friends and any close family behind. But once we got here and got settled, I figured things would die down. And they did for the most part. My sophomore year got going without anything major, so I figured life was good.

Before Thanksgiving that year, my Dad was experiencing pain in “that” area (which I didn’t know about until afterwards) and my Mom pretty much dragged him to the doctor. Right before the holiday, we were told that my Dad had testicular cancer. They found out on either a Tuesday or a Wednesday and he was in surgery to have the tumor removed on the Friday of the same week. It had apparently been there and growing for years and no one ever knew about it. He was given the chemotherapy and radiation treatment options, but he didn’t want to be sick over the holidays. So he started treatment after the new year started. He would go five days a week and be hooked up to an IV for several hours and then go to work afterwards. He had three weeks off and then it started all over again. I believe he did four or six rounds of this kind of treatment.

It didn’t faze him much in the beginning, but as time went on and he had more and more treatments, it started to make him sick. He lost weight and started losing his hair. Anyone that knew my Dad before this can tell you that his hair was his “prized possession”. It was long, curly, and jet black. He kept the top cut short and kept the back of it in a poly tail. One day when he had more energy than normal, he was wrestling with my brother in the foyer of our house. Mom and I sat on the couch and watched. After a couple of minutes though, we noticed black chunks on the carpet. His hair wasn’t just falling out… it was coming out in handfuls. Mom and I ran around the room trying to pick up the hair before he could notice. But when they were done wrestling, we told him. Everyone cried while we shaved his head that night.

Sometime during his battle, he remembered Lance Armstrong and all that he was able to accomplish. Armstrong had battled the same kind of cancer that my Dad had, beat it, and then went on to win the Tour de France seven times. Not once, not twice, but SEVEN times. He figured that if this guy could do it, then he could too. I remember getting him one of those yellow bracelets for Christmas the year he was diagnosed. I don’t think I ever saw him without it on after that point. It was his symbol of hope… his own way of getting himself through it.

(Eventually, his bracelet did break. He was devastated. His hope was completely gone. So I found the Lance Armstrong Foundation on Facebook and sent them a friend request. Once they accepted it, I sent them a letter asking if they could send something inspirational to my Dad and I explained the importance of the bracelet. About a month later, my Dad got an entire box full of bracelets. Not a small advertisement box, but a normal sized shipping box. He has plenty to spare now.)

Fast forward to Spring/ Summer 2007. I went in for my yearly exam like normal and didn’t think anything of it… until the office called me and told me that the test came back inconclusive and I needed to come back to have another test ran. I knew at that point that something was wrong. I went back in for more tests and had to play the waiting game… again. This time, the results came back saying that I had “dysplasia” on my cervix. The office called again and told me that they needed to schedule an appointment for me to sit down and talk with the doctor. I set the appointment and went in. I had Dr. Dunaway at the time. He tried to explain to me what was wrong with me, but he kept doing it in medical terms that I didn’t understand. He seemed to get irritated every time I would ask him to explain what he had just said. Eventually I got him to tell me that it meant that there were some abnormal cells on my cervix and that he would need to do a biopsy. Biopsy was scheduled and performed and then more waiting. Only this time, the results came back saying that it had already gone to being “carcinoma in situ”. The doctor told me that I had 6 months to do something about it before it would get irreversible. I figured I should tell my family at that point.

Of course my Mom flipped out. My Dad didn’t say too much. But my Mom took charge in finding me a new doctor for a second opinion. She found Dr. Batie for me and made the appointment. I went to Dunaway’s office and got my entire medical file – after some “discussion” on whether or not I was actually allowed to take it or not – and took it to Batie’s office. He was fabulous. He described everything to me in great detail as to what my options were, pain level for each, recovery time for each, and how each procedure worked. He even pulled out a picture book to show me what happened with each procedure. I was in surgery the next week getting my cervix lasered.

As you can see, cancer is a very sensitive and “hot” topic for me.

But back to the woman’s comment… “& he probably GOT cancer from shooting up steroids!!”. If Lance Armstrong had any steroids in his system at all, it would have been from his cancer treatments. He was most likely taking testosterone supplements. It would be the same as if a woman had breast cancer or ovarian cancer and needed to take estrogen supplements. And those in itself are steroids.

But if you look deeper into her comment, it’s almost as if she’s saying that he deserved to get cancer. Maybe I’m reading too far into it, but that’s the vibe that I got from it. No one deserves to get cancer. No one. No matter how horrible they are or horrible the things are that they’ve done. No one deserves to go through that. It just happens, most of the time for no reason at all.

I believe in Karma. I believe that if you live a great life, great things will happen to/ for you. But on the other hand… Karma can be and will be a bitch. I feel sorry for this woman when Karma catches up with her. And the worst part? She won’t have a clue as to why her life all of a sudden goes to hell.