cebii

disease

I haven't posted in a long time. Don't know why, tons of stuff has happened.

I talked to one of my cousins last night for a long time. I have lots of cousins on my moms side of the family, and Shirley is on the older end and I'm on the younger end, so we never really knew each other. But, since she is the most prolific emailer of the Colorado branch of our family, she ended up sort of being the Colorado contact and we've emailed quite a bit.

I started the conversation the led to the call by an email asking if she (a registered nurse) understood why there is so much blood-born disease, including leukemia, in multiple generations of our family, yet doctors insist that it is environmental. We talked about that, which of our many uncles and aunts had what, etc, trying to narrow things down. There are two diseases which ARE hereditary and per the doctors, in my family: hemachromatosis and Hemoglobin LaPore. One tends to make one have too much iron in their blood and the other causes iron to build up in organs, primarily the liver, I think. So, as you can imagine, together they can be deadly. Shirley's mom died of the combo and began all the research into our family. Now, if one has both, they treat it with diet and phlebotamy (sp?)and no one else has died of them. But, several of our aunts and uncles and cousins, including my sister and her brother, have gotten leukemia, and my mom had a disorder that often leads to leukemia, but never did in her case. My mom and sister both carried the LaPore condition, and Shirley said her mom and brother did, too. We are going to try to check and see who else does or did.

In my immediate family, we are trying to teach the teens to love themselves. The younger two, especially, have been exhibiting damaging behavior, though they don't see it that way. It is so hard. They are all so wonderful, but they just don't have the breadth of experience to see beyond the immediate present.

The babies are great. They don't look like babies anymore, more like toddlers. I'll have to start calling them the twins.

posted by cebii @ 8:23 AM