{"id":59290,"date":"2021-09-24T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/still-rare-after-50-years-andreas-rare-cancer-story\/"},"modified":"2021-09-24T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T17:00:00","slug":"still-rare-after-50-years-andreas-rare-cancer-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/es\/still-rare-after-50-years-andreas-rare-cancer-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Still Rare After 50 Years: Andrea\u2019s Rare Cancer Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

One month after his 35th birthday, my father, Kenneth, died of\u00a0leiomyosarcoma (LMS).\u00a0The journey\u00a0was quick. He coughed\u00a0up\u00a0blood and\u00a0it brought him\u00a0into\u00a0surgery. Massachusetts General Hospital diagnosed him, and he\u00a0died in another\u00a0hospital\u00a0closer to\u00a0my hometown\u00a0five\u00a0months later.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a child,\u00a0I had no\u00a0capacity\u00a0to understand nor grieve\u00a0his death. At 35, the same\u00a0age\u00a0he was when he passed,\u00a0I began to\u00a0grieve\u00a0and\u00a0I\u00a0have not\u00a0stopped.\u00a0I am\u00a055 now and I realize his journey of this\u00a0five-month, terminal illness no doubt frightened and angered him.\u00a0He blamed himself, thinking that it must have\u00a0his\u00a0smoking or the radiation he could have been exposed to, as he worked underground when he served in the army.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How baffling it is that this rare cancer\u00a0remains\u00a0rare\u00a050 years later?\u00a0There are so many cancer types that must\u00a0be eradicated, and\u00a0I hope LMS\u00a0is one of them.\u00a0Although\u00a0no \u201ccure\u201d is in sight and treatment seems\u00a0futile,\u00a0I\u00a0have hope for the future\u00a0that\u00a0new\u00a0and\u00a0improved\u00a0treatments\u00a0will be\u00a0discovered.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I share this story\u00a0because\u00a0there is\u00a0someone out there like me, who\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0know the actual type of cancer\u00a0their\u00a0father had.\u00a0It was a surprise to find\u00a0all of\u00a0this out later in life,\u00a0and I hope that I can let someone know\u00a0that they are\u00a0not alone.\u00a0I hope to gain closure someday\u00a0and\u00a0help someone feel validated in\u00a0their own\u00a0journey for their loved one.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

September 30 is #RareCancerDay, an annual awareness day devoted to shining a light on rare cancers and the issues people living with them face. NORD is highlighting the stories of the rare cancer community – learn more<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One month after his 35th birthday, my father, Kenneth, died of\u00a0leiomyosarcoma (LMS).\u00a0The journey\u00a0was quick. He coughed\u00a0up\u00a0blood and\u00a0it brought him\u00a0into\u00a0surgery. Massachusetts General Hospital diagnosed him, and he\u00a0died in another\u00a0hospital\u00a0closer to\u00a0my hometown\u00a0five\u00a0months … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Still Rare After 50 Years: Andrea\u2019s Rare Cancer Story”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,505,2754],"tags":[203,2765,2762,2763,2764,798,2045],"class_list":["post-59290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-patients-members","category-patient-stories","category-voices-of-rare-cancer","tag-cancer","tag-father","tag-leiomyosarcoma","tag-lms","tag-parent","tag-rare-cancer","tag-rare-cancer-day"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rarediseases.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}