The holiday season is upon us, and nothing says holiday cheer more than the smooth and sultry sounds of Michael Bublé singing Christmas tunes.
In fact, Michael Bublé has been promoting his new music after a brief hiatus – and for an important reason.
Two years ago, the Canadian singer abruptly put his career on hold after his son Noah, then just 3, was diagnosed with liver cancer.
More About Liver Cancer
Primary liver cancer occurs in around 200,000 people a year in the US.
Most people don’t have signs and symptoms in the early stages of liver cancer. When signs and symptoms do appear, they may include:
- Losing weight without trying
- Loss of appetite
- Upper abdominal pain
- Nausea and vomiting
- General weakness and fatigue
- Abdominal swelling
- Yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes (jaundice)
- White, chalky stools
It’s important to note the importance of the liver as a bodily organ. Some of the liver’s functions include:
- Breaking down and storing many of the nutrients absorbed from the intestine that the body needs to function. Some nutrients must be changed (metabolized) in the liver before they can be used for energy or to build and repair body tissues.
- Making most of the clotting factors that keep us from bleeding too much when we are cut or injured.
- Secreting bile into the intestines to help absorb nutrients
- Breaking down alcohol, drugs, and toxic wastes in the blood, which then pass from the body through urine and stool
From Diagnosis to Remission
Buble and his wife Luisana Lopilato announced young Noah’s diagnosis back in November of 2016 .
“We are devastated about the recent cancer diagnosis of our oldest son Noah who is currently undergoing treatment in the US,” Bublé wrote on Facebook. “We have always been very vocal about the importance of family and the love we have for our children. Luisana and I have put our careers on hold in order to devote all our time and attention to helping Noah get well.”
“I didn’t anticipate returning to recording or performing and I was fine with that,” he said. “My entire world view has changed completely these last few years. I wanted to spend all my time with my wife and kids. That was my focus.”
But lucky for their family, little Noah is in remission. Bublé has found the creative imagination and spirit to return to music.
Of course, this trying experience with Noah’s cancer has affected his outlook on life and his music. Bublé said it made him want to create something with some of the same compassion that he and his wife had been shown. To be sensitive to the fact that it was his son – and not he himself – who went through the physical ordeal of cancer, he is less eager to share more intimate details of that journey.
“My son’s story is a story he’s going to tell one day. It’s not for me. And I don’t want him to be exploited in any way, or for me to do that even accidentally.”
He echoes a point that I think a lot of us sometimes feel about these difficult journeys with disease.
“I can’t wait to never talk about it again. [But] at the same time, it’s impossible for me not to acknowledge that everything I am — everything I’m doing — is because of it.”
We’re happy that he shared a part of their family’s story with the world, and we’re even happier Noah is doing better. It gives us here – and the world- and opportunity to talk about and learn more about liver cancer, in the hopes of early detection or better of awareness.
