be totally straight with me, i used to smoke before i had children, how could of this affected them?

[tellmethetruth]

by smoking, heavy for many years, what damage could i have caused to my children.

please be very honest with me, i want the truth

tellmethetruth - I understand yuor wanting reasons as something else to process other than what you are going through. Whilst not for one moment suggesting you are to blame or that any of these reaosns are to blame or are even acurate, these are some of the reaons s I have heard given for a brain tumour. Again, they are reasons I have heard rather than represent as backed up scientifically and given as i wanted to repsond to the part of your thread that I felt hadn't been answered as to external causes:

1 Saccarin - has been proven in rats to cause tumours . I think the evidnece correlates to humans but not sure.

2 Heavy mobile phone use using hadn held phone - again - all speculation but based on rumours of people developoing tumours where phones kept in trouser pocket in exact same place and science asserting that heads are more vulnerable

3 radioacticvity - living near nuclear sites/under electrictiy pylons or sleepong near or next to electricity substations or meter cupbaords. similarly pollutino etc or living in affected sites like chernobyl.

4 chemcial overlaod generally from all th erubbish put in our food etc. hence why some people try and go macrobiotic, organic etc on this type of diagnosis. I don't think it has ever been of help after diagnosis though.

please do not blame yourself, life is so very unfair.
I blamed myself for dds syndrome,despite knowing better.
I smoked heavily pre kids too. My mum never stopped with3 kids. My dad never smoked yet died of heart attack age 49. Mum smokes 20-30a day lives on tea sugar andcake (thin as rail)
Defies commonlogic.
Have you had counselling truth? I think you'd find it helpful
I'm so sorry about your dd that is very hard to cope with

and btw am very very very sorry

i think you are not going to be satisfied with people saying it is not your fault

why this happens isnt clear to medical people but human beings do get cancers

it will not do you good to try and find evidence it was your smoking..

one duff cell doesn't mean it was your duff cell it just means that that's all it takes. Then you want to ask but why was there one duff cell and the absolutely gutting thing is no one knows why.

thankyou lisa, that means more to me than anything. i cannot tell you.

i simply want to know fact.

please saying sorry to hear this etc, simply does not mean a thing to me.
i know that sounds rude, but its no help really.

but as Lisa said - none of those things have been proven to cause cancer.

i think the easier way to look at it is that statistically some young children do get brain cancer

there are no clear evidential reasons why

i am just intrested in possible ways this could have been caused.

i know, noone can say for definate why this happened

well im going now.

i do not want to hear anymore, im so sorry about that, you might as well talk to me in japanese.
it doesn't mean a thing to me.

if anyone has any idea what MAY have caused this.
i would like to hear your ideas.

thank you.

Even cancer specialists would not have an answer for you.

It does not matter what MAY have caused it, the fact is that your child has terminal cancer and guessing about the reason why is only tormenting yourself.

You will never find a definate reason why, as LisaLisa said none of the reasons she listed have been medically proven, no one knows.

You come on and say your child is dying, of course people are going to say they are sorry, we are only human.

Free radicals don't go into other people's cells. It's not really how it works. Free radicals don't hang around for years.
There is no link at all between smoking and brain cancer - studies have shown that.
Cell reproduction is a complex thing - and it can go wrong.
Some scientists believe that brain cancers may possibly be caused by a virus - a viral infection, radioactivity is a cause for some people. But that doesn't mean anyone can pinpoint a cause in your daughter, and it absolutely isn't your fault.
This page is from a charity.
www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=5018#other
I'm not sure it will help you at all. I just hope you have people around you to support you.

And this says absolutely categorically that you will not have passed on some kind of gene for brain cancer. categwww.cancerbackup.org.uk/Cancertype/Brain/Causesdiagnosis/Causes

I undersgand tellmethetruth as I am like that with illness althogh have nver thankfully had to deal on the scale that she is facing. Some people do need reasons and facts and cannot come to terms with random chance, no reason , just happens etc. Havcing a reason - and the most likely one to fit the circumstances means that they can move on so to speak and laeve their anger pinned on that reason and then deal wtih the situation. Not having a reason or anything to pin their hat on leaves them feeling enraged and hopeless - sort of adrift in a sea of anything terrible could happen at anytime so why carry on. Having a reason means that you can avoid that situation again and try to feel that you can help yourself next time /in the future. Just speculating but that is how I react and may be how tellmethetruth is feeling.

Yes, of course we look for reasons and want to make sense of the world, especially when somethign catastrophically awful happens. But the trouble is, often there isn't a 'reason' - ie no cause that you can pinpoint and nothing to blame yourself or anyone else for (and certainly nothing that TMTT should blame herself for). Illness does just happen. It seems very likely that this will be the case for TMTT's daughter, or her doctors would have surely said. It is very sad and awful and unfair, but sometimes life is all of those things.