I learned that kids can get cancer when Jackson was 1 year old. He’d just learned to walk. He still wore OshKosh B’gosh overalls and loved to be rocked to sleep. There was nothing that he did wrong, or was exposed to; one day, there was just a lump.
Chemo. Radiation. Surgery. Stem cell transplant. Immunotherapy. Intensive Care. Oncology. Even though it’s been four and a half years since he finished treatment, some days it feels like it was yesterday.
At times, I think I was born the day Jackson was diagnosed. The world falls silent as cancer shuts out all the background noise of work stress, mortgages, that extra 10 pounds or what’s on TV. It awakens a level of empathy to suffering and an awareness to what’s truly important in life.
Once a cancer mom, always a cancer mom. These are 20 things I know by heart:
- It is the most unnatural thing in the world to be told your child has cancer.
- There’s nothing you can do or say to take it away from them. There’s no fixing it.
- Babies can be born with cancer.
- Toddlers can lie on the floor and throw a tantrum while having cancer.
- Little Leaguers will miss their games because of cancer.
