A crowded room.

“When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.”

I know you have all heard the expression, "Feeling alone in a crowded room."  That is how I feel when it comes to this disease.  Especially, when it comes to Ashton.  Making choices for me isn't easy, but at least I am making them for myself and I don't really allow myself to think about if it is right or wrong, I just concentrate on what I feel is best.  It isn't so cut and dry when it comes to making huge life decisions for your child.

You know, if it was a cut knee, I could put a bandaid on it.  As mothers, we just want to fix things.  When facing a problem, our first thought is, "How do I fix it?"  With FAP, you don't have a ton of options and you can't really ever "fix it."  Most days that is just not acceptable to me.  It's hard and I struggle and my heart aches.

Ashton had his second colonoscopy/endoscopy this week.  In January, he had 20 polyps in his colon, total.  They removed all of them.  It has been 11 months and he now has many.  They stop counting at 50, so he has 50 plus.  They removed 8 of the larger ones to biopsy and we should get those results back in a week or so.  We pray that there is no cancer at this time.  His doctor felt good about those that she removed though.  However, we had to have that talk that I've been dreading.  At this point, it's timing.  The clock is ticking and we are now gambling.  For some reason, for me, this has been just like finding out the first time...all over again.  "Lord, I'm not ready."  He's telling me to get ready though and I don't like it.

We've decided to wait for the biopsy results and if there is no change, we will wait 6 months for his next colonoscopy.  That gives him a break from it and it gives me time to think.  The goal is to get Ashton through high school before surgery is needed, but if he starts having any symptoms or a polyp changes, we will do what we have to do.

On our way home from Ashton's procedures Monday, Ashton asked me if he could give this disease to his kids.  It was such a smart question for his age and I was so glad that he was thinking that far ahead, yet I found myself really sad when I had to answer him.  I gave him the facts - his children have a 50/50 percent chance of having the disease.  However, I gave him the positive side of it.  There are so many new medical discoveries every day, there are ways of changing genetics and testing for those things and there are other ways of having a child.  Imagine being 14 years old and already having to wonder if you will have to make those decisions one day.  Through my insecurities in all of this, my goal is to make him BRAVE!

Information about Familial Adenomatous Polyposis at:
http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition=familialadenomatouspolyposis