health

A husband’s birthday message to his wife. Get tissues before proceeding

Kristian Anderson is 34 years old.  He  has a wife, Rachel, and two children.  He also has cancer in his bowel and in his liver. Kristian recently made this video for his wife as part of the birthday celebrations he put on for her .  Watch it.  With tissues and excuse yourself from the people around you.

Basically, I’m 35, married and have two sons – Cody (nearly 4) and Jakob (nearly 2). We live in Curl Curl on the northern beaches. Rach and I have been married for 7 years. She’s from Auckland and I’m from Perth. We met in 2001 at a creative arts college we were attending. We dated for ten months, engaged for 2 months and then married in June 2003. I was diagnosed in October 2009 after returning from the USA. The doctor’s thought I had a blood clot/DVT from the air travel and scanned my lungs. It turned out there was no blood clot but they were able to see lesions on my liver so they ordered a full scan and sure enough… cancer all over my liver which had spread from a primary tumour in my bowel. Apparently this is a common travel path for bowel cancer. I’ve been undergoing chemotherapy ever since… almost a year now. I’m responding well to the treatment and my cancer levels have decreased by approximately 75% since diagnosis. The chemo is hard, though I have been very fortunate and have not experienced many of the side effects that others do. No hair loss, no weight loss, healthy appetite etc. The chemo wipes me out for about a week and I’m constantly tired but I am able to work every 2 weeks out of three (self employed so it’s a good thing). I have a faith in God and believe that I will live a long life. I don’t know how it’s all going to work itself out though. There’s not a thing I can do to get better except pray and ask God to do something and keep turning up for chemotherapy and do what the doctors ask. I keep a blog here. I mostly use it to keep track of my thoughts and stir myself up when I feel things getting me down. It details everything we’ve been through so far. I set it up mostly so people would stop calling Rachel and asking for updates. It was so hard for her to have to re-live it every time someone rang so I felt a central point of information would be a good thing.” If you think the one in two that get cancer is too many, you can join the fight against cancer by donating to the Cancer Council, link is below! For more information, visit: www.bowelcanceraustralia.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=825PSeX02s8&feature=player_embedded

This morning Kristian and Rachel appeared on The Today Show  Crying much?  Inspired much? But the message is strong – It does not matter how small the problem , is or how embarrassing it is GET IT CHECKED OUT.