General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I had a personally staggering, explosive weekend - in a good way. Wanted to share. Adoptees note. [View all]calimary
(81,366 posts)Gotta tell you, and this is momentarily shocking to say until you get the next sentence in afterwards. I know. I saw it in people's faces this weekend - because my next-oldest sister held an open house in my honor for all their friends and neighbors with whom they grew up and people who knew their (oops - my) family for years and years and who would be MOST interested in this. The house was full of people who wanted to meet me and hear my story and how my journey finally led me there. During the first phone conversation I ever had with my next-oldest sister, one of the things she told me straight off was that "you should know there's cancer in our family." And my reaction was - um - well, I was THRILLED to hear this! Yeah, I know I know, WTF?
But I WAS thrilled to hear this. I was thrilled to hear ANYTHING. ANY such information. ANYTHING. SOMETHING. Even just a little bit - even a little bit was a whole lot more than I had before! I finally had SOME biological information, after all these years, about what was REALLY my background and my genetic inheritance. Previously, I had NOTHING. I couldn't look at my adoptive mother with her congenitally-enlarged heart, or her high blood pressure, or her arthritis, or her bad teeth, or anything else, or my adoptive father with his late-onset diabetes and polyps in the colon and heart condition and believe that I should be on the lookout for any such symptoms or manifestations in my own later life. I didn't know WHAT to look for or what to expect or what to do specific preventive care for, or anything. Now I do!
Sounds to me like you're an especially great candidate for this. Sounds like you need to find REAL family. If you're like me, you probably chose, or even appointed some "family" members. I appointed the little old lady next door as my grandmother when I was a little kid. 'Cause I didn't have one. My best friend since we were in 4th grade was the closest thing I had to a sister. I still consider her one, and my kids consider her kids cousins. Again - because this is pretty much all we had. If you ever wanna talk further about it, please message me!