cancer slayer

Last week, I had dinner with a friend who goes to Haiti often and is headed back any day now to lend a hand.

I jokingly told him to bring me back a baby, but I was serious about mothering a child from Haiti, or any country for that matter — if only folks wouldn’t judge me based on my medical records.

Okay, so it hasn’t happened yet. But more than likely it will.

As part of my quest to adopt a child, I’ll have to answer questions about being a cancer survivor, and rightfully so. But regardless of how well I recover, or even if I battle the beast and win, my medical history is going to be problematic. As one adoptive mother I reached out to wrote me in an e-mail, “The biggest obstacle is your health.”

Yeah. No kidding.

I found out a long time ago that being a cancer survivor would be a huge strike against me when it came time to adopt a kid, and I was a bit irritated by her need to state the obvious. The adoption agencies worry about how long a cancer patient is going to live and whether we’re fit enough to be parents.

And it’s not just ovarian cancer patients; it’s all cancer patients. I heard of a woman with thyroid cancer, which is highly curable, having to wait years before she was allowed to adopt. Granted the five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer patients — about 46 percent — isn’t as encouraging as thyroid cancer or even breast cancer, but when I read that figure, I interpreted it as somebody out there is beating the odds.

A lot of somebodies actually.

The reality is that cancer is becoming a chronic but manageable disease for many. Yet when it comes to adoption, survivors are discriminated against despite that fact that other ailments are more pervasive and equally life-threatening.  More American women, for example, die from heart disease each year? A healthy cancer survivor (no, it’s not an oxymoron) should no more be given a hard time regarding adoption than someone who’s at risk for heart disease or someone who’s overweight.

Furthermore, there are conditions like depression that negatively affect child rearing more than cancer. Take for instance a family friend who battled bipolar disorder all his life. He stopped taking his medicine two years ago and shuttered himself in his apartment until he starved to death. He was healthy in almost every other respect. He just couldn’t triumph over the demons in his head.

I’m not arguing that this is the fate of everyone battling mania and depression, but those with ailments that severely compromise their cognitive abilities aren’t forced to come clean. In many cases, you’d never know.

And that’s exactly why this entire adoption process is dubious. Some folks can mask their issues, while others like me are forced to wear them for the world to see. Or, more accurately, to read.

Doctor’s visits, medical records, chemo treatments — they’re all there to be accessed by whoever will decide whether I should be allowed to adopt. I’m not suggesting that they shouldn’t be, but I wouldn’t be trying to be an adoptive parent if I thought I was physically unable to take care of a kid.

I have no plans to adopt by myself, which might make my situation a bit more palatable. But my sweetie and I haven’t even started the process and already people are talking to me about the difficulties ahead. That’s no reason to quit, though. In fact, it will just spur this cancer slayer on.