Written by Ben Cox – When a simple trip to the pediatrician’s office reveals something more serious than a simple infection or 24-hour bug, what do you do?
[adrotate group=”8″]
September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and Brownwood has many families who have been touched by this terrible disease. Some have tales of triumph and overcoming the diagnosis, while others’ stories are those of remembrance and mourning.
Brandy Bishop, a survivor of childhood cancer, is now an adult with children of her own. Often seen helping out with Relay for Life, the gold pep rallies in September for Childhood Cancer awareness month, and other activities, it is a cause that is near to her heart.
Bishop went to see the nurse after being hurt by something at a basketball game by a seemingly innocent activity. “My freshman year I was at an HPU game and they were throwing T-shirts to the crowd. One hit me in the chest and it really hurt. So I was feeling around and I found these knots so I decided that I’d go see the nurse and have it looked at. She knew something was wrong and said I needed to have them checked out.”
Bishop continues “Monday I went to see the doctor, he was really scared because he knew something was going on. Blood-work came back bad, and I was headed to Scott & White to have more tests done.”
Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Bishop did four months of chemotherapy and three weeks of radiation.
She says the symptoms started appearing about a year earlier. “I was playing basketball as a senior in High School and I just didn’t feel good the whole year. I was so tired, so fatigued, but there was ‘nothing wrong with me’ because the blood-work came back fine.”
Diagnosed at a much younger age with Epstein Barr, Bishop says the earlier tests didn’t show anything because Epstein Barr can skew those tests.
As an adult looking back at her childhood experiences with the disease, Bishop is in a unique position and has an outlook tempered by those experiences. “I’m more aware of how easily life can change.”
Bishop says that she has struggled with a kind of “survivor’s guilt” for years, because there are so many children who have not gotten the opportunity to have the life she is now living. Through tears she says “I feel was very, very angry about that for many many years. I was nineteen, they were seven, and I lived. But I didn’t have control of that, that was an understanding I had to come to after being angry about that for very many years. Since then I have grown a lot, spiritually.”
Aside from her faith in God, which she credits for a large part of coming through her illness, Bishop says the community was amazing in its outpouring of love and generosity for her and her family, a sentiment that has echoed throughout this series of articles. “Back then, kids just didn’t get cancer. It was very few and far between. I grew up in Zephyr, and the community just came together. They had multiple fundraisers for us, and we didn’t have to pay very much out of pocket. It was way beyond anything we could expect. Brown County and Brownwood is such a tight-knit community.”
Bishop also acknowledges those who may not be able to give money in times like these, but make efforts in other ways. “We all have a purpose. We all have our part. Some people just pray, and that is as needed as anything else.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thank you to all who participated in this series. It has been an emotional time for me as a writer, a father, and a son. If there is one thing I have learned from these interviews, it is to listen to your children, and if the doctor doesn’t take you seriously when you say something is not right with your child, find one who will.
This series is dedicated to James Crow, who is fighting leukemia for the second time in his life as you read this. He, his wife Hanna, his parents Melissa and David and all who are on #TeamJames, you are in our thoughts and prayers.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});